Azernews.Az

By Sara Israfilbayova

Rapid development of the economy of Azerbaijan is obvious. This is evidenced by the fact that over the past 12 years Azerbaijan’s economy has grown by 3.5 times.

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov made the remark during the meeting with entrepreneurs in Sumgayit on June 20.

Addressing the meeting Ahmadov noted that the basis of this development was laid by the national leader Heydar Aliyev and is also the result of the successful policy being continued by President Ilham Aliyev.

"Economic development is the basis of development of all spheres in Azerbaijan. The resources obtained as a result of economic development made it possible to reduce poverty in Azerbaijan from 50 to 5 percent, the well-being of the population significantly improved, wages increased, pensions grew threefold, the towns and cities of the country changed and modernized. Without economic development, it would be impossible to make this achievement," Vice-Premier said.

The Deputy Prime Minister went on to say that the implementation of entire work envisaged in the future is also connected with economic development, further adding that the priority of the policy of President Aliyev is economic development.

“Today, it is planned to implement radical reforms in the economic sphere of Azerbaijan. Henceforth, a new stage is beginning in the development of the country's economy, which requires from entrepreneurs greater responsibility and an increase in the coefficient of activity," he stressed.

Further, he touched upon the pension rights of the employees.

He said the Azerbaijani government is trying to ensure that the pension rights of citizens are not violated and in the future they could receive their pensions

Ahmadov emphasized that the purpose of the meeting is to hold discussions and to take measures in order to resolve the issue of social contributions, further adding that the desire and demand of the government is that entrepreneurs fully ensure the wages of hired people, ensuring both their current rights and pension rights, which they will use in the future.

Encouraging business doing in the country remains to be one of the priorities for the government, which supports entrepreneurs through creating necessary conditions for the development of a healthy business climate in the country, and issuing concessional loans.

In this regard, it is planned to create the Agency of Small and Medium Enterprises and the Guarantee Credit Fund in 2017-2018. Similar agencies already operate in Europe, the UK, the USA, China, Singapore and other countries, stimulating the development of small and medium-sized businesses.

So far there is the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support (NFES) under the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry that has been operating since 1992 to provide preferential loans from the state budget for small and medium business in an effort to develop entrepreneurship in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The NFES allocated 190 million manats ($111.6 million) for financing projects of local business entities in 2016.

Since early 2017 the Fund has issued concessional loans worth 13.8 million manats ($8.1 million).

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