Azerbaijan, Finland to co-op in innovative entrepreneurship

/AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

The State Fund for Information Technology Development under Communications and High Technologies Ministry and the Finnish Center for Technology and Innovation Development TEKES have reached a preliminary agreement on cooperation in the sphere of support of innovative business.

The statement came from Deputy Executive Director of the Fund Azer Bayramov.

One of the important areas of cooperation is possibility of the private sector investment in the economy of the both countries, he noted.

"This point will be stipulated in a memorandum of understanding that the fund plans to sign with TEKES in the future. Collaboration involves helping Finnish companies invest in Azerbaijan, and create appropriate conditions for Azerbaijani companies to enter the Finnish market," Bayramov noted.

TEKES is the largest publicly funded expert organization in Finland dedicated to help research, development and innovation in the corporate sector and universities.

Azerbaijan is interested in the experience of this organization for issuing grants, as well as in it ability to organize its debt financing with an annual interest rate of one percentage without bail.

"It is possible that the use of this practice in Azerbaijan may increase the number of applications for credit financing of business activities," Bayramov said.

Azerbaijan distributed a total of 278.4 million manats soft loans to 3,040 young entrepreneurs in 2002-2014. The entrepreneurs created about 13,000 new jobs. The loans also helped the young entrepreneurs to press ahead with their business.

The country has already opened its first business incubator in Guba-Khachmaz economic region and the second one will be opened in Aran economic region in 2015.

Participants of these incubators have an opportunity to present business ideas in different fields: agriculture, industry, tourism and the service sectors.