Investment in the development of Azerbaijan's information and communication technologies sector is expected to reach $4 billion by 2020.
Ali Abbasov, the minister of communications and high technologies in Azerbaijan, said the ICT sector will grow approximately 15 to 20 percent annually through 2020, AzerNews reports.
"In accordance with the 'Azerbaijan 2020: Vision for the Future' development concept, the volume of the ICT sector in the country will increase 4.5-5 times at an average annual growth rate of 15-20 percent," Abbasov said, according to AzerNews.
He said that Azerbaijan's ICT sector revenues would reach $8 billion to 8.5 billion by 2020, representing approximately 10 percent of total gross domestic product.
The Azerbaijani State Oil Fund will allocate approximately $131 million for project implementation in the first stage. The total cost of the project is estimated to cost more than $573 million. Approximately 30-35 percent of its total cost will be financed through reinvestments.
The end goal of the project is to provide the entire country, including remote rural settlements, with high-speed internet in the range of 30-100 megabits per second, and increase the number of broadband internet users to 85 percent of the total population. Approximately 70 percent of the current population uses the internet in Azerbaijan. The penetration rate of broadband internet is 50 percent.
The project would allow Azerbaijan to reach the level of developed countries by 2017, AzerNews reports.
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