Azerbaijan, Baku, 13 March / corr Trend S.Babayeva / Over 12 years of its activities in Azerbaijan, the mobile oprator Azercell Telecom has invested over $630mln in the Azerbaijani economy, Halim Atesh, the Presdent of the company, stated on 13 March. During this peirod, tax payments by the company have exceeded $400mln.
"We are one of the big taxpayers in the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan," Atesh said
In 2007, the operator allocated $4mln for social projects and $1.5mln for the improvement of its employees.
On 15 Dec 1996, Azercell launched its activities. The Turkish Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of Azerbaijan acted as its first founder. Halim Atesh is the General Director of the company.
The investments of the company reached $600mln since the company began its activity. Azercell, one of the big tax-payers of Azerbaijan, has paid some $400mln to the state budget and other Government funds.
The company offered its subscribers mobile services on post-paid basis. In 1998, Azercell applied pre-paid system SimSim. In 2000, Azercell established quality management system, and on 7 December 2000 the company was certified with ISO 9001.
In January 2004, the company was issued ISO 9001:2000. In 2006, Azercell Telekom was awarded IIP (the Investors In People) standards.
The contract on sale of the Azerbaijani government share in Azercell Telecom JV, the biggest mobile operator in the country, was signed in February in Baku. The Government share of 35.7% was sold to the co-founder of the company, the Turkish Azertell Telekommunikasyon Yatirim Dis Ticaret А.S at $180mln, the State Committee for the Property Management said.
Azercell, a private company delivering mobile services on GSM standards in Azerbaijan, has more than 3.1mln subscribers.