Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 13 / Trend A. Akhundov /
The ratio of private and public investments in Azerbaijan's tourist industry is well balanced, Azerbaijani Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Garayev said today.
"This ratio is fairly well balanced," he told Trend today. "It accurately reflects the current realities."
He said that many hotels are being built in Baku and Azerbaijani regions.
"We are observing a tendency of commissioning at least 30-40 new accommodation facilities per year - from small hotels to five star hotels for the last three to four years," he said. "It is a private business."
"The construction of the winter tourist complex Shahdag, is a good example of public investments in this sector.
"Moreover, there are the creation and development of new tourist zones, support for tourism through the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund under the Economic Development Ministry, as well as the development of transport infrastructure which is directly connected with the development of the tourism infrastructure," Garayev said.
He added that over 200 million manat were invested in the development of infrastructure projects through the ministry of culture and tourism.
"Private and public investments complement each other well," he said.
According to the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee, state investments in the construction of tourist accommodation facilities and catering totalled 97.3 million manat in the first half of 2012, or by 27.4 per cent more compared to the same period of last year. Around 1.6 per cent of all public investments made in construction fell to these funds in January-June 2012.
The National Entrepreneurship Support Fund told Trend today that the preferential loans worth 35.2 million manat have been allocated to 106 entrepreneurs to implement the projects in the field of tourism. Six projects worth 205,000 manat were funded in 2012. These projects involve creating 3986 new jobs.
The official exchange rate is 0.7852 AZN/USD on Sept. 12.