Azerbaijani president addresses 1st South Caucasus Forum

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addressed on Tuesday the first South Caucasus Forum, held in Baku on May 7-8. The president noted that Azerbaijan is one of the few countries in the world which are simultaneously members of the Islamic Cooperation Organization, the Council of Europe, and the UN Security Council.

The 1st South Caucasus Forum was organized by the State Committee for Work with the Diaspora, the Nizami Ganjavi International Center and the Club of Madrid, Trend reports on Tuesday.

"Azerbaijan is a relatively young independent country. It has existed as an independent state for 21 years. Azerbaijan is a country of great history, traditions, culture, and one of the organizers of this forum - the Nizami Ganjavi International Center - was named after the great Azerbaijani poet," Trend cites President Aliyev as saying.

"Ethnic, cultural and religious diversity is one of the biggest assets of Azerbaijan. We highly value multiculturalism. Azerbaijan's experience shows that multiculturalism has a great future. The alternative to multiculturalism is self-isolation, discrimination, racism, and in the 21st century we cannot afford such tendencies to prevail," the Azerbaijani president said.

"As far as economic reforms are concerned, Azerbaijan has made tremendous progress since the times of independence. Azerbaijan's GDP tripled in the last 10 years, which I think is the world record. The country managed to reduce poverty from 50 percent to 6 percent, reduce unemployment by up to 5 percent. More than a million jobs were created in Azerbaijan and we also managed to diversify the country's economy," Trend cites the president as saying.

"The assessment by the main international financial institutions is very positive. Even during the years of economic and financial crisis, the three main rating agencies, "Fitch", "Moody's" and "Standard & Poor's", upgraded Azerbaijan's credit rating. The Davos international forum ranks Azerbaijan 46th in terms of the global competitiveness index. This is the reflection of the reforms," President Aliyev said.