Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 23 / Trend , I.Khalilova/
Under a state project to support entrepreneurial development in Azerbaijan, the Finance Ministry allocated the first tranche of 37 million manat from the 2009 state budget to the National Fund for Entrepreneurial Support (NFES), the ministry said.
The ministry plans to issue a 120-million-manat loan for this purpose via the NFES, as well as 40 million manat in returned funds. Eighty million manat from the budget have been envisaged for the NFES.
Over the last 5 years, the NFES issued 335.6 million manat in lax loans to 7,350 entrepreneurial investment projects; 82.3 percent were in the regions. As a result, new production and processing enterprises were launched in Azerbaijan and over 73,000 jobs created.
The NFES lax loans are issued through 29 authorized business banks, one non-banking loan organization and four loan unions.
Under the current rules of the financing, the authorized banks receive finances from the NFES at a 1-percent interest rate and issue loans at rates under 7 percent.
Based on the rules of using the NFES finances, which were adopted on Dec. 28, 2006, the terms for issuing micro-loans and small loans is two years, medium - three years, large - 5 years and immense - 7 years.
However, the NFES Supervisory Board is considering prolonging the terms for issuing the loans. The maximum loan for one entrepreneur is 3 million manat.
In 2008, over 78 percent of the financed projects were in the regions, and 86 percent fell to the production and processing sectors.
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