Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.15 / Trend /
Over the past seven years, the amount of the ICT sector in Azerbaijan has increased five times and now hits about $1.5 billion, Communications and Information Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov said in an interview with the Russian newspaper RBC daily.
"Now it is 3.5 percent of GDP," Abbasov said.
The minister said this sector shows an average annual growth rate of 30-32 percent from 2003, with the exception of the crisis year 2009, when the dynamics declined to 13-14 percent per annum. World average growth rate on ICT constitute roughly 10 percent.
"Our main task is that in 2020-2025 ICT incomes can catch up with the volume of income from oil export, and eventually surpass them. We are seriously planning to turn the sector into a locomotive of the economy," the minister said.
Abbasov said that in 2010 Azerbaijan reached 100-percent penetration level of cellular communication. And it was announced in 2008 that fixed telephone communication was present throughout the country, that is, for the first time in the post-Soviet space almost all the settlements were provided with fixed telephone communication.
According to recent data, about 50 percent of the republic's residents have become Internet users, while Internet access is available in each settlement. On Oct.1 2010, the penetration rate of broadband Internet access in Azerbaijan constituted 12 percent. Level of coverage of state and public television and radio channels in the republic is 100 percent, private - 80-85 percent.
The minister said that direct investments from the budget in the Azerbaijani ICT sector is around $50-60 million per year. In general, average annual investments in the sector are about $300 million, and over the past five years more than $1.5 billion have been invested in this sphere.