EXCLUSIVE ANNIVERSARY

The past few years have seen Azerbaijan come close, according to some indicators, to the development level of post-industrial states with their characteristic high-tech economies and all-out development of information society. The 20th anniversary international telecommunications exhibition BakuTel 2014 has graphically demonstrated the main areas of the domestic IT industry. 

The BakuTel 2014 show held at the Baku Expo Centre impressed the audience by the scale and diversity of its display and, which is no less important, by the attention from specialized international structures and IT giants. This exhibition presents 250 companies from 23 states of the world, 40 per cent of which are its permanent participants. This year, the UK, Israel, Iran, Italy, Canada, Turkey, Estonia and some other countries have presented to the guests their programmes that are innovative not only to Azerbaijan but also to the entire Caspian region and their exclusive products and services in the ICT domain.

In keeping with tradition, the opening ceremony of this international forum was attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "Over the past decade, Azerbaijan has been able to raise the ICT sector to a very high level," President Ilham Aliyev said in his welcome speech to BakuTel 2014 participants. "Thus today, a significant proportion of the population are broadband Internet users; this country has put into orbit its national telecom satellite Azerspace-1 and is actively developing the sector of international space services. It is implementing the Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway project which has met with full support from the UN General Assembly.

As shown by many years' experience of holding telecommunication forums in Baku, this format of business contacts has fully justified all expectations. As we know, more than 2,000 companies from 50 states of the world have taken part in BakuTel over the past 20 years and over 100,000 guests from all over the world have familiarized themselves with new IT products and services.

The current show is no exception. Quite a number of local companies have presented their innovative products. These include Azerbaijani language platforms enabling people to create their own website within just a few minutes; online universal TV for all types of devices, applications for mobile phones to view TV channels even with a weak Internet connection, LED video walls to demonstrate art installations, brand new GPS technologies for tracking vehicles and managing vehicle fleet, and "mobile wallet" solutions. The Electronic Government Portal booth has presented a very promising pilot project of an electronic guide. It is a terminal to print out copies of various certificates and other documents certified with electronic details (barcode and QR code) within just a few seconds.

The forum features start-up projects and High Tech Park being formed in this country. An interactive stand presents future plans of Azerbaijan's satellite operator, the Azerkosmos open joint stock company.

It is noteworthy that an agreement was signed during the exhibition opening ceremony between Azerkosmos and the French company Airbus Defence & Space on transfer to the Azerbaijani side of all rights to control the low-orbit satellite SPOT-7-AzerSky placed into orbit in June this year. Taking part in the signing ceremony was President Ilham Aliyev who received the first symbolic picture from the optical satellite and launched the commercial operation of the project.

Azerbaijan became the 20th state in the world and the second in the CIS to launch a low-orbit satellite. Altogether, there are no more than 50 spacecraft of this type put into orbit worldwide. The AzerSky satellite will be used to monitor various objects including in emergency situations. Its capabilities will also be harnessed for the needs of agriculture, laying service lines, mapping, defence, exploration of natural resources and others," said Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and High Technologies Ali Abbasov. "It is gratifying that Azerkosmos has already signed a number of contracts worth a total of 14m euros for next year. Thus the commercial exploitation of the optical satellite will be highly profitable," he said.

During the telecommunications exhibition, the ministry announced the launch of one more very important project. In 2015, Azerbaijan will start implementing the Fibre to Home programme envisaging broadband Internet access throughout the territory of this country. According to Deputy Minister of Communications and High Technologies Elmir Valizada, the project funded by the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan will be implemented step by step over three years and part of its cost will be provided by reinvesting. The final goal of the project is to form a ramified optical infrastructure to provide Internet connection at a speed of 10-100 MBits/s and, most importantly, to increase the number of users of broadband services to 85 per cent, including in remote parts of the country.    

By the way, the Fibre to Home project is a logical extension of the ministry's initiatives put forward over many years to modernize the communications systems and develop the network infrastructure. "Today, the territory of Azerbaijan is completely covered with fixed communication lines; efforts continue in the state to build telephone exchanges on the basis of the modern NGN (Next Generation Network) technology and the share of such exchanges is as high as 40 per cent today," said First Deputy Minister of Communications and High Technologies Iltimas Mammadov. According to him, 75 per cent of the population are Internet users and 65 per cent of them have broadband access to the worldwide web.

No less important is the news voiced during the telecommunications forum that giants of the world IT industry are going to place their manufacture of computer equipment in Azerbaijan. Thus for instance the well-known Taiwanese company Acer is planning to set up the assembly of computer equipment using the facilities of the Mingacevir-based KUR plant. For its part, the Intel corporation will also take part in the manufacture in this country of Classmate PC computers designed for children and schools.  

Azerbaijani IT companies are increasing their output of electronic products from year to year. In particular, the facilities located in the Sumqayit Technology Park (STP) have launched the production of a variety of surveillance cameras, computerized face control, security and fire safety systems. Apart from the domestic market, all these products are exported to Georgia and Kazakhstan. The assembly of monitors as well as modern payment terminals has also been set up here in the STP. Several banks of this country have already started operating such terminals.

In keeping with long-standing tradition, the exhibition organizers timed a series of international conferences to this event, specifically, the 2nd Regional Internet Governance Forum RIGFAZ-2014 and a forum on "eGov3.0: Development Trends and New Opportunities". "Over the past few years, Azerbaijan has manifested itself as a leader in developing information and communications technologies and in bridging the "digital gap". In particular, Azerbaijan has set up its Electronic Government portal providing almost 400 electronic services. An e-signature system has been introduced. Centres of the ASAN xidmat service are in operation providing access to state bodies' services for citizens in a single format. These mechanisms are a vivid example of the efficient development of electronic government systems in Azerbaijan," said Carlo Mario Rossotto, the World Bank's coordinator for transport and ICT in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia.

One more conference on "The Internet of Things: More than Communications" touched upon aspects of the new stage in the world-wide web evolution. As conference participants pointed out, a recent conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) elected Azerbaijan a member of the organization's central governing body, the ITU Council, for this country's vigorous activity and contribution to the development of the ICT industry.

Thus the exhibition and the forums have shown again that there are good reasons why telecommunications are regarded in Azerbaijan as one of the most promising areas in the non-oil sector of its economy and profits from them can successfully become a significant source of state budget revenues in the future.