Baku hosts Russia-Azerbaijan business forum

Baku is hosting the Russia-Azerbaijan business forum today, the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reported.

The forum was attended by Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev, Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council Samad Gurbanov, Acting President of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Yusif Abdullayev and Director of the Russian Export Center Andrey Slepnev.

Russia and Azerbaijan have good dynamics of cooperation in many areas of the economy, as well as prospects for their growth, 

Azerbaijan’s Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said that about 200 representatives of industrial enterprises are taking part in the forum.

According to Mustafayev, Russia and Azerbaijan have good dynamics of cooperation in many areas of the economy, as well as prospects for their growth.

The minister noted that the trade turnover between the two countries in 2018 amounted to $2.5 billion, which is 19% more than in the previous year. He added that there are about 700 companies with Russian capital in Azerbaijan. 

The minister noted that the value of investments by Russian companies in Azerbaijan amounted to $4.4 billion, and the value of Azerbaijani investments in Russia stood at $1.2 billion.

Mustafayev stressed that the two countries have serious prospects for the development of cooperation in the field of agriculture, chemical engineering, industry and in a number of other sectors.

Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov said that representatives of more than 60 Russian companies operating in various sectors of the economy, including in the fields of agriculture, ICT, automotive engineering, chemical industry and other sectors, are taking part in the forum.

Manturov said that Russia considers creation of joint ventures with Azerbaijan in the industrial sector as one of the priorities in cooperation.

“Russia is interested in strengthening trade and economic ties with Azerbaijan and looks forward to strengthening partnership cooperation in the near future,” he said, stressing that Russian companies are actively increasing their export potential and their competence in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and Russia have signed three agreements in Baku on economic cooperation. The documents were signed as part of the visit of Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov to Baku.

In particular, Sumgait Technology Park LLC signed an agreement on cooperation and organization of relations with Rostselmash KZ LLC and a memorandum of cooperation with Transmashholding LLC. This is while AzOkso LLC signed a memorandum of intent to jointly implement fencing systems with ServiceInvest LLC.

As scientist of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies of the RAS Institute of Economics Artem Pylin told Vestnik Kavkaza earlier, one of the directions for development of industrial cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan is creating joint assembly plants for deliveries to third countries.

"One of the options is creating joint assembly plants for deliveries to third countries - Iran, Turkey, Vietnam, the countries of Southeast Asia, that is, those which need traditional engineering products due to rapid economic growth, in which both Russia and Azerbaijan are strong," he said.

"The second option is everything related to digital transformation. Both the Azerbaijani and Russian governments are paying special attention to the digital economy development, corresponding state programs have been adopted. Here it is important to coordinate the interaction, in particular, in applying best practices and guidelines for digitizing public administration services and developing joint platforms. We have very good companies - Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Kaspersky Lab - that could interact with relevant partners in Azerbaijan," Artem Pylin suggested.

"Of course, it is also necessary to think about how Russia and Azerbaijan will interact in the global gas market and the global oil market. In our view, Russian gas, which will go to Europe via the Turkish Stream, and Azerbaijani gas, which will be supplied via the Southern Gas Corridor, cannot be direct competitors since the end user are different countries. We know that Azerbaijani gas will mainly go to Italy, while Russian gas will go via the Turkish Stream to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These are different markets, and there can be no direct intersection between us. Therefore, the issue is our engagement, cooperation within the framework of Turkish hubs," the scientist of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies of the RAS Institute of Economics concluded.