Interest in business activity growing in Azerbaijan - Association of Small & Medium Enterprises & Clubs

By Trend

Interest in business activity is growing in Azerbaijan, Board Chairperson of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises and Clubs Nigar Alasgarova told Trend.

Alasgarova made the remark commenting on preliminary results of a survey conducted within "Find an Entrepreneur" project implemented with the financial support of the State Agency for Support of Non-Governmental Organizations of Azerbaijan.

According to her, 52 percent of over 1,000 respondents expressed their intention to start their own business in the coming three years.

"This survey is planned to continue until the end of this year. At the first stage of the "Find an Entrepreneur" project, the survey is being conducted in such districts as Aghdam, Barda, Tartar, as well as Ganja city," she said. "We chose these districts due to implementation of the project through the grant competition on "Research on the economic development of war-affected regions."

"By the end of this year, we intend to conduct the survey not only in these regions, but also in other regions of Azerbaijan and cover nearly 300,000-500,000 respondents," the board chairperson noted. "Conducting the survey among such a large number of participants will make our research more sustainable and allow us present more concrete solutions and proposals to the government. The survey results have already shown that this study will give a great impetus to the development of entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan."

She also noted that when conducting the survey, the participants haven’t been divided into any categories, such as small, medium or large businesses.

"Our survey covers 40 questions, 10 of which are informative, that is concern the respondent’s age, region, status, and experience in the field of entrepreneurship. This information will allow us to form a report which will take into account the survey results of both businessmen with extensive experience, and citizens who want to become businessmen," Alasgarova stressed.

"Over the past three months, we have conducted the survey among over 1,000 people in the above districts. According to the results, 52 percent of respondents are interested in creating their own business in the coming three years. I believe that by the end of our study, this indicator won’t change significantly and we’ll be able to make the right assessment," she added.