Azerbaijan can use agricultural parks to establish processing enterprises

Azerbaijan plans to create processing enterprises on the territories of agricultural parks.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for the Development of Economic Zones Zamir Dibirov made the remarks in an interview with Report.

According to him, it is planned to create a processing enterprise on the territory of the Yevlakh pilot agro park.

"The area of the agro park is 2,855 hectares. A processing zone will be created on 129 hectares of this territory, on a plot unsuitable for sowing. This territory will be provided with the necessary infrastructure (electricity, gas and water), after which we will be able to attract investors to this territory," he said.

He noted that processing enterprises can be created in the fruit growing, seed production and dairy production sectors.

Dibirov said that key areas for the further development of agro parks have been identified.

"We want agro parks to be specialised, therefore clustering of agro parks is assumed. In general, 51 agro parks have been created in our country in 32 districts. The area of these agricultural parks is 240,000 square metres," he said.

The opening of the Yevlakh pilot agro park took place in 2021. The project cost of the agro park is 103 million manats [$60.5 million], of which 74 million manats [$43.5 million] are private, and 29 million manats [$17 million]are public investments. It is planned to create 100 family farms on 1,147 hectares out of 2,855 hectares of the park territory. In the agro park, 500 people will be provided with permanent work, and 1,000 with seasonal work.