By Trend

The total volume of soft loans issued through the Azerbaijan Entrepreneurship Development Fund to businessmen in the country so far amounted to 2.7 million manat ($1.6 million), Trend reports via the fund.

According to the fund, the loans were issued to 41,300 businessmen.

The fund said that the share of projects for the manufacturing and processing of agricultural products in the distribution of soft loans by sectors of the economy equaled 91.7 percent; manufacturing and processing of agricultural products - 6.1 percent, and the development of the service sector (infrastructure, medicine, education, and others) - 1.6 percent, and the tourism sector - 0.6 percent.

According to the fund, 60.5 percent of the loans were directed to the manufacturing and processing of agricultural products, 26.1 percent - to the manufacturing and processing of industrial products, 2.2 percent - to the development of tourism, while 11.1 percent - to the development of the service sector.

In the distribution of soft loans by regions, the share of Baku city and adjacent settlements made up 6.5 percent, and regions - 93.5 percent. By the number of financed projects, the Karabakh economic region ranked first among the regions (17.6 percent), added to the fund.