KOBIA: Number of SMEs has increased by 64% since 2018 in Azerbaijan

Since 2018, the number of small and medium-sized business entities (SMEs) in Azerbaijan has increased by nearly 64%, exceeding 401,000, Orkhan Mammadov, Chairman of the Board of the Small and Medium Business Development Agency (KOBIA) under the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy, said during the "Dayaq" award ceremony, Report informs.

According to Mammadov, during this period, the added value created by SMEs has more than doubled, increasing from 9.8 billion manats ($5.76 billion) to 20.1 billion manats ($11.82 billion): "The turnover of businesses in this category last year was 43.8 billion manats ($25.76 billion), which constituted 37.3% of the country's non-oil turnover."

"Today, President Ilham Aliyev successfully continues the National Leader's development strategy against the background of new challenges. For this purpose, various strategic programs are being implemented, broad tax incentives are being applied for entrepreneurs, investments in the real sector are being encouraged, and numerous support mechanisms and new organizational-legal models are being developed for business development. It is gratifying that the new organizational-legal model and support mechanisms created by our state in the field of business development are recognized as exemplary practices at the international level," the chairman emphasized.