Entrepreneurs do not feel protected

A survey among  small businesses had a goal to find out their problems, said the head of the Foundation for Assistance to Entrepreneurship and Market Economy Sabit Bagirov.

On Tuesday at the presentation of the project "Promotion of Small Business" Bagirov said that there are problems, despite the adoption last year of a large number of decrees and decisions on the development of entrepreneurship.

"According to survey participants, the main source of problems is devaluation and a drop in purchasing power. However, there is another reason, namely the failure to officials of middle and low-level decrees and decisions. They say that soon everything will return to the old ways," Bagirov said.

The results of the survey presented Ilkin Garayev, the Director of the Center for Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises. The survey was conducted among 1,000 businesses in all economic regions of the country.

Questions on the situation in the field of business,  the conducted inspections, on the National Fund of Assistance to Entrepreneurship, tax and customs system and others. Thus, 33.9% of respondents assessed the situation in the business sector as "very unfavorable",  27.9% "difficult to assess", 27.4%  were called  "unfavorable", 10% "neither good nor bad",  and only 0, 8%   called it a "favorable".

47.3% of respondents do not feel the improvement after the steps the country's leadership to reduce corruption, 36.8% believe that the situation has improved partially, 13.6% did not answer, only 2.3% said that the situation has improved.

32.7% of entrepreneurs believe the unfair competition in the sphere of their activities, 31.9% said that the situation is partly unfair, 17.7% - part of the fair, 17% were undecided,  and  0.7%  called  it completely fair.

20% of respondents reported that they appealed to the National Fund of Assistance to Entrepreneurship for a loan, and  only  31% could get it, (62 entrepreneurs.)

69.3% of businesses do not feel protected from bureaucratic arbitrariness, 66.4% believe that the number of taxes should be reduced, 59.7% said  it is not possible to do business  without breaking the law in Azerbaijan.

Summarizing the presentations, Garayev said that, unfortunately still small businesses cannot play a key role in the country's economy. "97% of businesses are classified as small and medium businesses. However, the share of small and medium business in GDP is less than 3%, in employment - 8%, in export - 2.5%," he stressed. -71D-