Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr I. Khalilova / The Azerbaijan Economic Development Ministry awaits the expert completion of the new state program on development of small- and middle-scale entrepreneurship (for 2007-2012) by the World Bank (WB), International Financial Corporation (IFC), and US Agency for International Development (USAID) by the end of August, according to the head of the Entrepreneurship Development Department of Azerbaijan Economic Development Ministry, Samir Nuriyev.
According to Nuriyev, the project of the program has already been coordinated with the German Society for Technical Assistance (GTZ) and the Azerbaijani-US Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
"After approval is received from other international organizations, we plan to submit the document to the Cabinet of Ministers in September," Nuriyev said.
The document covers issues from improvement of the legislative base for small-scale and middle-scale entrepreneurship to non-financial assistance, use of financial instruments, creation of business infrastructure (industrial towns, business incubators), improvement of quality standards in production, and introduction of exported instruments. Moreover, Nuriyev believes it is high time to Europeanize the notion of small- and medium-size business in Azerbaijan, as earlier middle-scale business was considered large-scale for Azerbaijan.
Compared to the previous program intended for 2002-05 the new one is more saturated and it will be able to become a strategy on work with small-scale and middle-scale entrepreneurship.