Full exemptions from company tax, buy tax, actual property taxes and dividends for ten years are among the many incentives on provide to Israeli startups that select to relocate to Azerbaijan, “Globes” can completely reveal.
The choice by a rustic with a Shiite Muslim majority to make such a transfer in the course of the present warfare, regardless of the wave of anti-Israel sentiment, is phenomenal and stunning. The transfer follows the launching of a tech park at present below building in Baku though the incentives being provided by the Azari authorities can be found for Israeli tech firms that arrange anyplace within the nation. Sources have instructed “Globes” that a number of Israeli tech firms are already in talks over relocation to Azerbaijan.
Above and past the incentives listed above, firm staff can pay 0% private earnings tax on month-to-month salaries as much as $4,700. With a view to qualify for these incentives, firms should have been working for at the very least one 12 months or have ten or extra full time staff, or annual income of at the very least 200,000 manat (NIS 430,000).
As a part of this system, assist is supplied for immigration to the nation, which incorporates exemptions from work permits, help in issuing residence permits and arranging logistical points similar to discovering places of work and lodging.
Azerbaijan is striving to grow to be the expertise hub of the Euro-Asian area, and a gateway to the Turkic nations. Baku’s relationship with Ankara is predicated on the thought of “one nation, two nations.” Due to this fact, firms that search broad operations in Turkey, when relations between Israel and Turkey are at an unprecedented low, will be capable to profit from the depth of the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Time to be weaned from oil
This system is led by the Innovation and Digital Improvement Company of Azerbaijan (IDDA), with the primary purpose of diversifying the financial system. The oil and gasoline sector accounted for 47.8% of Azerbaijan’s GDP, 52.7% of budgetary sources and 92.5% of exports in 2022. Baku, they is conscious that the world is weaning itself from oil, and preparations are required to cut back dependence on the black gold.
Azerbaijan attracts inspiration from the Gulf nations, which have been working tougher in recent times to diversify their economies and “wean” off fossil fuels. The UAE, for instance, launched a program final 12 months wherein non-public firms had been required to make use of 6% native employees in 2024 and 10% by 2026. Azerbaijan, alternatively, doesn’t oblige the businesses that relocate to make use of a sure proportion of native employees.
Nevertheless, IDDA is already working to coach related personnel, and funds scholarships for greater than 3,000 college students for IT programs. The purpose is to coach as many juniors as attainable, in order that they may be part of the international firms. Subsequent 12 months, the variety of scholarships for locals is anticipated to develop to five,000.
RELATED ARTICLES
IDDA regional VP comfortable touchdown Pasha Aliyev, who’s in command of relocating startups in Azerbaijan, speaks fluent Hebrew. He tells “Globes” that the initiative to draw Israeli firms is a part of a broader effort to construct a powerful tech ecosystem in Azerbaijan. He says, “Our younger and multilingual inhabitants, mixed with a wide range of totally different cultures, creates a dynamic and revolutionary workforce. As well as, our superior infrastructure permits firms relocating to the nation to settle and combine rapidly of their new residence. This mix makes Azerbaijan a perfect location for tech firms searching for development and innovation within the Asian market.”
Flourishing relations with Israel
Israel-Azerbaijan relations has flourished since 1992 primarily based on the sale of Azerbaijani oil to Israel and superior expertise Israeli weapons techniques to Azerbaijan. Within the first half of 2024, in line with the Baku Customs Bureau, there was a 55% leap within the import of oil to Israel from Azerbaijan, amounting to $989 million. As revealed in Globes, regardless of the commerce embargo imposed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Israel, Azerbaijani oil continues to circulate by means of the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline – the place it’s loaded onto tankers within the Turkish port metropolis of Ceyhan certain for Haifa. The primary cause for the shortage of injury to the oil provide is the shut relationship of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Erdogan.
Within the different course, Azerbaijan is a serious buyer of Israel’s protection industries. It has procured, amongst different issues, Spike anti-tank missiles from Rafael, Hermes UAVs from Elbit, and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Harop loitering munitions. Final October with the Azarcosmos company signed a take care of IAI for 2 OptSat500 satellites, which is able to substitute the Azarsky satellite tv for pc manufactured by Airbus, with which communication was misplaced in April 2023.
Thus the event of the tech sector in Azerbaijan will diversify each its financial system and its commerce relations with Israel. “We’re centered on scale-up firms that can come to Azerbaijan, recruit native folks – and create a important mass,” Aliyev explains. “We’re in common contact with our bodies in Israel, such because the Export Institute, and handle common communications with comparable our bodies in different nations too.”
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on September 5, 2024.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.
