Azerbaijan’s Agency for SMEs, USAID start initiative to support business associations

  19 February 2020    Read: 1425
  Azerbaijan’s Agency for SMEs, USAID start initiative to support business associations

Azerbaijan’s Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the local mission of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have launched a new initiative to support business and professional associations operating in the country, Trend reports.

The goal of the initiative is to develop partnership on joint tasks between the public, private sectors and civil society, as well as to focus on organizing business partnership, as well as on the activities of business associations in this direction.

To this end, on Feb. 18, a partnership event to support business and professional associations in Azerbaijan was held in Baku, which was attended by representatives of government agencies, international organizations, business associations and civil society institutions.

Chairman of Azerbaijan’s Agency for the Development of SMEs Orkhan Mammadov delivered speech. Mammadov spoke about the work done by the state, as well as his agency, towards organizing the activity of entrepreneurs representing different areas of the country’s economy, including support for the creation and development of specialized associations and public unions.

It was noted that the initiative of the agency will play an extremely important role for both the public and private sectors.

USAID Mission Director in Azerbaijan Jay Singh noted that technical support for business associations is mainly intended for SMEs. As part of the initiative, USAID will evaluate and finance several projects submitted by business associations, public unions and NGOs to strengthen associations.

In this regard, the creation of a consortium among business entities, public unions, business associations and NGOs will be encouraged.

Panel discussions on “Global models of business and professional associations and their significance”, “What makes business and professional associations more effective?” were held as part of the summit. Experts from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and the US delivered speeches at the panel meetings.


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