Government to back ‘knowledge-based organizations’

Sorena Sattari, who was in Yazd province for a visit to the province’s science and technology parks, addressed a meeting of officials and businessmen and entrepreneurs. “The deputy’s ‘support packages’ have been provisioned for Parks, and the government will provide support for these organizations through commercialization of them,” told Sattari to the meeting.

“Tax exemptions are such a support the government would provide. Those eligible for the exemption should be qualified by science and Technology Park of any province,” he added, and that “the regulations would boost product marketing and export in such institutions easily.”

Sattari, who is also the director of Board of Trustees of the Innovation and Prosperity Fund, also pointed to low-interest loans by the Funds would be given to the Research and Technology Funds of these Parks for relevant expenses.

The head of Iran's National Elites Foundation (INEF) held that Parks were not mere physical places; “they embody an idea, an innovation, and a beam of thinking,” he asserted.

“A government mandate to be issued in the near future will allocate 5 per cent of the profits accruing upon the science and technology knowledge-based companies to the universities where they are based,” said Sattari. However, he said that the mandate requires universities to invest this sum in research and development.

Sattari criticized the current state in the universities, where he believed, “university professors entertain themselves with abstract teaching, and called for respect and credit for professors coming to sign agreements with industry sector, “we propagate and support such a trend now,” he added.

Seyed Mohammad Mirmohammadi, Yazd’s provincial governor also addressed the meeting. “I believe, there are no limits or restrictions to physical expansion of these Parks, and the government support is enough for these centers. It only requires determination in your part and motivation to absorb the university graduates in great achievements,” he added.

SH/ZK
MNA
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