Balakhani Industrial Park to serve as driver of economic development

By Azernews

By Amina Nazarli

The opening of Balakhani Industrial Park was held on September 22 with participation of President Ilham Aliyev.

The park was established in order to create favorable conditions for entrepreneurs and potential investors in the field of secondary production.

The economic diversification and development of the non-oil sector represent an important component of socio-economic policy pursued in Azerbaijan.

The main goal is to realize the vast potential by taking advantage of it effectively, where industrialization process offers great opportunities.

Industrial and high-tech parks are drivers of the economic development in developing countries. Their residents are exempted from virtually all taxes for several years.  Moreover, parks provide all the necessary communications for launching business projects, which reduces the cost of investors to create infrastructure.

In accordance with the current industrialization policy of the Azerbaijani government, hundreds of modern industrial enterprises began to operate, and new industrial sites have been created in the country. The share of local products and export has significantly increased thanks to this.

Main purpose of the establishment of such parks in the country are the creation of favorable conditions in the country for further development of industrial production, provision of support to entrepreneurs, and increasing employment of population in the sphere.  

Since industrial parks are one of the most important factors supporting positive economy development, Azerbaijan so far established five of them namely, the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, Balakhani, Garadagh, Mingachevir and Pirallahi industrial parks.

Currently, the Balakhani Park has five residents engaged in the field of recycling of used motor oil, waste plastic bottles, paper and cardboard products, waste plastic materials, sponge waste, who invested 23 million manats.

One of the residents of the industrial park is ‘Az.Ekol’ company producing plastic chips, obtained from the recycling of plastic PET bottles. The total investment amount of the project is 1.5 million manats.

With annual production capacity of 1,500 tons, the enterprise plans to export high-quality plastic crumbs to foreign countries.

Another resident of the Balakhani park is ‘Ekokat’, which will process waste motor oil. Annual production capacity of the enterprise, with 1 million manat investment is 3,000 tons.

The resident was granted with 200,000 manats from the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund of the Economy Ministry thanks to which Turkey and China purchased equipment for processing. The resident began to conclude contracts for the collection and harvesting of used motor oil.

This oil for the use of motors of large vehicles and agricultural machinery will meet all standards. In the course of the production process, along with base oil, diesel oil will also be produced, which will be directed to meet the production needs for fuel.

In addition, the secondary processing of motor or lubricating oil used in the country will prevent the release of oil that pollute the environment.

‘Chapar’ is another resident of the Park, which using waste paper will produce printing product.

‘Metak’ is also the resident of the Balakhani Park which will be engaged in the production of various plastic packaging products as a result of secondary processing of waste plastic products.

The last resident of the Park is ‘FORE?LLA’, that will carry out secondary recycling of sponge waste and furniture production. The state support was provided to the establishment of the enterprise with a total investment value of 3.5 million manats. The annual production capacity of the enterprise is 3,000 sets of living room, bedroom, and kitchen furniture, as well as 100,000 chairs and 10,000 tables.

The managing organization of the Balakhany Industrial Park is “Tamiz Shahar” Open Stock Company, which is under subordination of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Total area of the Balakhani Industrial Park is 7 hectares.