Parliament ratified allocation of $300 million from the National Development fund of Iran's (NDFI) resources to the Innovation and Prosperity Fund, Behzad Soltani, head of the IPF, said in a news conference this week.
The IPF is tasked with allotting some of the resources to construct technology complexes in different cities and has called for domestic knowledge-based companies to purchase office space in the business parks either paid by installment or hire-purchase, Soltani said.
Presently, knowledge-based firms are based in science and technology parks, universities and over the cities, while the country has a serious lack of technology complexes in cities, he underscored. The official also announced that the innovation fund is to earmark more than one trillion rials ($35.7 million) of facilities to its 323 approved projects. The coordinators of the projects have asked for two trillion rials, he added.
He noted that the innovation fund will pay the applicants in several installments within a year and a half.
He added that 94 percent of domestic knowledge-based companies are new and need fewer facilities due to their smaller size. There are about 1,500 knowledge-based companies in the country and the number is set to increase to 3,500 by the end of the year (which started March 21), he said.
Iran’s economy is in transition from the traditional business to more knowledge-based activities. Knowledge-based enterprises can make a significant contribution to overall economic development by increasing added value among other things, experts say.
A knowledge-based economy is a system of consumption and production based on intellectual capital, in which a significant part of a company’s value may consist of intangible assets, mainly the value of its workers’ knowledge (intellectual capital).
The scope of a knowledge-based economy is not limited to the technology industry alone, it can also be used in the fields of information technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology and other high tech firms.
