Azerbaijan, Baku, June 14 /Trend H.Veliyev/
The information technology market of Azerbaijan has survived the global financial crisis much less painfully than in Kazakhstan, IDC manager for Central Asia & Azerbaijan Andrey Beklemishev told reporters Thursday.
According to him, today the market as a whole has recovered and reached the volume of the pre-crisis period.
"It is clear that the crisis will continue to disturb the whole world, but in general, we reached the figures of 2007 on turnover," Beklemishev said.
Beklemishev considers a 25-30 per cent annual growth in the ICT sector of Azerbaijan as being a reality.
"IT markets are growing much faster than GDP. If GDP growth slows or decreases, the IT markets react to it quickly. In Kazakhstan, for example, before the crisis we have seen an increase on average by 30 per cent. In 2008-2009, we saw the reduction of the IT market by 50 per cent, although the GDP didn't decrease. Economic growth continued by two or three per cent, but despite this, the IT market decreased," Beklemishev said.
The markets of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, in his opinion, have much in common.
"They are closely related to subsoil resources and above all, with oil," Beklemishev said.