EXPERIENCE OF ENTERPRISE INCUBATOR FOUNDATION TO BE PRESENTED AT WORLD CONGRESS

Noyan Tapan
Apr 11 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 11, NOYAN TAPAN. Work expetience of the Enterprise
Incubator Foundation (EIF) will be presented as the best example
during the world congress of business incubators to be held in Saint
Louis (US) on May 1-5. EIF Director Bagrat Engibarian announced it
at the April 11 press conference. In his words, EIF is not only an
incubator of enterprises engaged in the information technologies (IT)
sector but also an agency that assists the enterprises not making
part of the incubator by offering the models which were developed in
Armenia. B. Engibarian said that EIF gives advice to the appropriate
Ukrainian bodies with the aim of creating an enterprise incubator in
this country.

Ii is also envisaged to use EIF’s experience for establishing a
similar incubator in Georgia. As an evidence of EIF’s successful
activities, he indicated the fact that the donor organizations and some
international organizations on development programs implementation in
Armenia have cofinanced EIF’s programs by allocating 3 mln USD. It
was noted that the impact of the EIF on development of Armenia’s
IT sector was acknowleged by the famous KPMG audit and consulting
company. In the opinion of B. Engibarian, EIF’s contribution to a 15%
annual production growth of the Armenian IT sector and attraction of
considerable investments (in 2005, investments of 14.4 mln USD were
made) was quite significant. To recap, the EIF is operating under the
5 mln-dollar World Bank program envisaged for 2002-2005. The program
has been extended until late 2006, after which the EIF will operate
by self-financing principle.