Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The Azerbaijani government intends to unify the criteria of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in line with the EU standards, the WB leading expert in finance and private sector in the South Caucasus, Angela Prigozhina, told Trend June 8.
“The introduction of a unified definition of SMEs in line with generally accepted European and global approaches will make the market more understandable and expand the comparative base for assessing the effectiveness of investments [including government spending on support and development of SMEs] and productivity,” Prigozhina said.
In May this year, the WB mission headed by Prigozhina visited Baku. Cooperation in the field of SMEs was one of the topics discussed by the parties.
The expert noted that the WB mission recommended concentrating efforts on improving statistics and information disclosure on the main indicators of the real sector of economy and, especially, the activity of SMEs in accordance with international practice.
The current SME criteria were set in 2015. Thus, small enterprises are the companies employing up to 25 people, and the annual turnover of such companies shouldn’t exceed 200,000 manats. This is while the staff of medium-sized enterprises should consist of 25-125 people, and their annual turnover should be 200,000-1.25 million manats. In turn, companies with more than 125 employees and an annual turnover exceeding 1.25 million manats are considered big enterprises.
Besides existence of two criteria for determining the size of the company, there is another problem related to the fact that different state agencies collect and provide different information about SMEs. In other words, there are no single criteria for collecting statistical data.
(1.7 manats = 1 USD on June 8)
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli