Infrastructure

Home page

Infrastructure

Azerbaijan to set up first Free Economic Zone this year

15 January 2009 12:59 (UTC +04:00)

Ali Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, told APA-Economics that the Free Economic Zone to be set up in Azerbaijan will be unique because it will create a high-tech manufacturing and information-based interrelation area for integration.
According to him, the project is designed to expand Azerbaijanâ€™s ICT boundary circle towards the regional markets by ensuring local IT firmsâ€™ penetration into regional markets and foreign firmsâ€™ presence in Azerbaijan.
The ministry estimates that the project will yield fruits in 5-10 years.
The overall project covers the creation of technoparks to develop small and medium-size enterprise, production and exportation of electronics and software, development of local competitive production, and penetration into the regional markets, establishment of all necessary infrastructure for populationâ€™s access to the modern ICT services, conversion of the country into a transit information hub and development of human resources for the information society.
Elmir Velizadeh, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, said the minus and plus of foreign experience in the establishment of Free Economic Zones will be deeply explored before a pilot project is launched.