Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / The Head of the Entrepreneurship Development Department of Azerbaijan's Ministry of Economic Development, Samir Nuriyev, said on 17 September that the Ministry is prepared to, for one more week, to receive the response of the international financial organizations to the new State Program for Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development (for 2007-2012).
"The document has been submitted to the IFOs, but over three months, responses have been received from only three organizations," Nuriyev said. German Society of Technical Assistance (GTZ), US-Azerbaijan Trade Chamber and Coordination Office of TACIS have expressed their readiness to participate in further talks. Yet the World Bank made an unofficial approval although the responses had to be received by 1 September.
"We cannot further delay the submission of the State Program to the Government, it needs to change the period of its activity," he said.
The document involves the improvement of the legislation for small and medium entrepreneurship, providing non-financial assistance, introduction of financial instruments, establishment of the business infrastructure, raising the quality of the manufactured products, application of export instruments. In addition, Nuriyev said that it is high time to Europeanize the understanding of small and medium business in Azerbaijan.
Compared to the previous 2002-2005 State Program, the new program is more saturated and it may become a strategy for the Ministry to work with small and medium entrepreneurship.