Baku hosts 15th German-Azerbaijani business forum

The German-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce is holding the 15th German-Azerbaijani Business Forum in Baku today.

During the meeting, the representative of the Federal Ministry of Economy and Technologies of Germany, Margit Steffel, said that Germany intends to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the field of supply of equipment and technologies, as well as preparation of highly skilled managers.

"Azerbaijan is an important partner, given the fact that it produces oil and gas," she stressed.

The Forum has been organized within the framework of the business trip of German companies to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Two workshops will be conducted within its framework on oil and gas industry, chemistry, as well as construction and mechanical engineering, abc.az reports.

Professor of the Western University, political scientist Fikret Sadykhov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that "the forum will be focused on the further development of our cooperation in these areas." "Both parties are interested in it. There is some common understanding on a number of issues, as well as mutual understanding on a number of fronts. I believe that this forum will summarize the recent period and outline some challenges and directions for the future and set objectives which will be common to both Azerbaijan and Germany," he said.

"Azerbaijan's emphasis has been placed on the non-oil sector recently. In this regard, perhaps the model of Azerbaijan will be interesting for Germany. So cooperation may be based on these indicators, because even if Germany is not actively involved in any energy projects, for example, our gas projects, and they will include it because they are aimed at ensuring the energy security of the European continent," the expert suggested.

A political scientist and MP of the Azerbaijani Majlis, Rasim Musabekov, in his turn, said that "if the Chamber of Commerce has organized this, these kinds of events are not held for show." "The volume of Azerbaijani-German trade is quite large. And, in my opinion, the volume of German exports to Azerbaijan exceeds imports to Germany. In this sense, Azerbaijan is a very attractive growing market for large German industrial concerns. We know that, even though Germany does not have the largest energy corporations such as Eni and Total, nevertheless there are companies that are interested in trying to gain a foothold in the energy market of Azerbaijan," he said.

"It is known that Germany, Switzerland and Austria have the highest level of modern, highly precise mechanical engineering. Azerbaijan is developing the non-oil sector, so it needs equipment. Therefore, I think that first of all, this agenda is being discussed at the meeting," the parliamentarian added.

Speaking of which, the analyst said the industries of the Azerbaijani economy of greatest interest to German investors are the energy and renewable energy spheres. "We are reconstructing our chemical industry now. I think that German companies may be interested in some kind of partnership in this sector," Rasim Musabekov concluded.