The Head of the Knowledge-Based Economy Fraction in Parliament emphasizes that the issue of immigration should not be taken lightly, as it leads to the departure of startups from the country. He stated that some regional countries are attracting Iranian startups and taking entire talented and creative teams out of the country.
According to IDEA, the Head of the Knowledge-Based Economy Fraction in Parliament, in the first supervisory event on the Science and Technology Growth Law, stated: ‘Banks have had the least cooperation in implementing the Science and Technology Growth Law.’
‘Mohsen Dehnavi’ continued, ‘Today, if a knowledge-based company wants to obtain working capital loans, it can’t. On the other hand, we must also consider some issues like the emigration of elites. Some regional countries are attracting our startups. They are taking not only the elites but the entire creative and attractive startup with them.’
He emphasized that before becoming a member of parliament, he worked in the knowledge-based sector and understands the problems in this field: ‘We have written a law to support these companies, part of its regulations has been drafted, and another part is in the drafting stage. Among the institutions responsible for this law, the least cooperation has come from the Central Bank and the banking system in this area. Unfortunately, the Central Bank does not provide the necessary cooperation in implementing the law, and that is why the problems have not been solved.'”
Deputy for Science and Technology: We have 9,000 active knowledge-based companies
Rouhollah Dehghani Firouzabadi, the Deputy for Scientific, Technological, and Economic Affairs of the Presidency, announced that the number of knowledge-based companies was 55 in 1392 (2013-2014), and this year it has exceeded 9,000 companies. He promised that by the end of this year, the number of these companies would reach 11,000. He stated, ‘The statistics for knowledge-based companies in 1392 were a maximum of 55 companies, but this year there are more than 9,000 companies. The Blossom Innovation Fund, as an investment institution, had nearly 3 trillion tomans in capital in 1392, and today it has 50 million dollars in capital. This means that the number of companies has increased almost 200 times, but our budget has not increased. Also, knowledge-based companies had nearly 200 billion tomans in revenue in 1392, and their revenue reached 450 trillion tomans in 1401. It is clear that this ecosystem has changed.’
According to Firouzabadi, after the approval of the Science and Technology Growth Law, contracts equivalent to 160 million dollars have been signed with knowledge-based companies, all of which are first-time contracts. He said, ‘These contracts have resulted in approximately 330 million dollars in foreign exchange savings. The approval of this law has also been effective in promoting the Innovation Fund. In the board of trustees of the fund, an increase in the fund’s capital to 100 million dollars was approved.’
The Science and Technology Growth Law has assigned the task of developing the provincial knowledge-based economy, which has taken shape in the first phase with five provinces: Yazd, Isfahan, Zanjan, Markazi, and West Azerbaijan. Firouzabadi stated that a budget of 2 trillion tomans had been allocated for this purpose, saying, ‘The implementation of the Progressive Law for the Growth of Knowledge-Based Production, over a period of 10 years, will lead us to an annual growth of at least 1 percent in the gross domestic product in the field of knowledge-based production.
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