Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.17 / Trend U. Ismayilova /
The Azerbaijani Economic Development Ministry's National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support (NFES) intends to allocate favorable loans totaling at least 30 million manat to entrepreneurs in the first quarter, NFES Executive Director Shirzad Abdullayev said today.
"But this is not the limit, if local entrepreneurs appeal to the National Fund with economically sound projects, we will be able to find additional funding for such projects," Abdullayev said.
This year the Fund plans to issue loans worth 125 million manat on favorable terms. In particular, it is expected to finance loans totaling $ 91 million manat or 73 percent due to return of earlier allocated loans, while 34 million manat or 27 percent will be allocated from state budget.
"If more projects are submitted to the National Fund than projected, then all economically attractive projects will be funded," Abdullayev said.
The Fund also does not exclude the possibility of applying to the Azerbaijani Finance Ministry for additional funding for favorable lending to business.
Abdullayev said monthly NFES receives 7.6 million manat from earlier issued loans. Since early 2011, 10 million manat has been already returned to the Fund.
NFES Executive Director also said that the Fund is interested in increasing the number of authorized credit institutions for favorable funding to entrepreneurs. In this regard, since late 2010, the Fund has started to cooperate with AzerTurkBank. The Fund considers appeals from three credit unions. Thus, today 30 banks, four non-bank organizations and Aqrarkredit are authorized credit organizations of the fund.
The official exchange rate is 0.7954 manat to $1 Feb.17.