Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

Being the leading country of the region in terms of information and communication technologies, Azerbaijan is currently engaged in the development of the new techno park of innovative orientation.

A source told Trend that the Park will operate in downtown of the capital city. The new building, with the area of 7,000 square meters will serve as a hub for business incubation centre, co-working centre and laboratories. The project is expected to be launched within a year.

One of the main peculiarities of the Park is that the participants will get a status of residents and will be able to benefit from tax and customs privileges. The project is expected to offer a basis for sustainable development of the ICT sector in Azerbaijan, create alternative income sources and increase its attractiveness for foreign investors.

General Manager of IBM Russia/CIS Andrei Filatov told Trend that high demand is currently observed for information security solutions, hardwired and hardware solutions as well as building of IT infrastructure.

He mentioned that 3 main segments of clients may be distinguished in Azerbaijan – financial sector, state sector, retail trade and services. The interest is also growing to the sphere of consulting services in financial sphere.

Azerbaijan is the first and the only country that adopted the strategy of switch to the information-oriented society in the South Caucasus region.

The latest report of the International Telecommunication Union for 2016 ranked Azerbaijan 58th on the index of information and communication technologies development (IDI), rising its points up to 6.28 as compared to 6.23 in 2015. Azerbaijan took the 4th place among CIS countries, following Belarus (31), Russia (43) and Kazakhstan (52). Sub-index of internet access and use in the country stood at 6.18 and 5.70 respectively, while the figures were 5.70 and 5.66 in 2015. The level of penetration of fixed telephone communication amounted to 18.7 percent in 2016 recording a decrease of 1.06 percent, while, penetration of mobile communication increased by 0.36 to stand at 111.3 percent.

The country’s leading position in the sphere of ICT allows it to have ambitious expectations on the further commercialization of projects implemented in the sphere. High technologies parks have so far been created in Pirallahi district of the capital city and Sumgait.

Sumgait Park is a unique project, capable to satisfy the requirements of domestic and foreign market. The industrial center is expected to boost economic development of Azerbaijan, and restore historical traditions of Sumgait as an industrial center in the Caucasus. The Park will focus on the research in ICT, telecommunications and space, energy efficiency, as well as on production of new and high technologies.

The Park in Pirallahi district was established for research, development and implementation of cutting- edge technologies, energy efficiency, space and telecommunications and information technology and communications. The advantages of the Park, coupled with Baku’s strategic location are expected to attract major companies standing at the forefront of technological advancement and turn it into a regional hub.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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