Azerbaijan Agribusiness Center Year Three Annual Report for October 1, 2005 - September 30, 2006

摘要

The Rural Enterprise Competitiveness Program's (RECP) primary goal is to help Azerbaijan's agricultural sector to reclaim its earlier leadership role in domestic and regional markets. Specifically, the project's aim is to add value to Azerbaijans agricultural products by assisting its agro-processors. To help accomplish this, RECP's three key objectives are to: (1) Increase domestic and export sales; (2) Attract direct and indirect investment; and (3) To create jobs. Year 03 of the project also witnessed the inclusion of an additional objective: assisting USAID in its Avian Influenza mitigation activities. Year 03 began with an aggressive work plan that called for a dramatic ramping up of project activities. These included: Doubling the number of clients being served by RECP; Shifting RECP's geographic focus to include regions that were underserved by the project; Broadening the client base to include non-food processors; Undertaking market research to determine the potential of a number of new products; Launching a program of clustering clients and providing targeted supportive seminars, workshops, and other training opportunities; Promoting an enlarged grants program; and Broadening our client outreach with a number of new support publications.