The Director General of the Russian Association of Manufacturers of Agricultural Machinery, Yevgeny Korchevoy, spoke in an interview with a 'Vestnik Kavkaza' correspondent about the prospects of extending trade cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan in the sphere of agriculture.
According to him, in view of the fact that political relations between the two countries are at a high level, there was a big request from Russian businesses to increase the supply of their products to Azerbaijan and, respectively, high quality and relatively cheap Russian goods are in demand in Azerbaijan.
"Our sphere is the production of agricultural machinery. We already deliver our machinery to more than 40 countries. Unfortunately, we don't deliver a lot of equipment to Azerbaijan, but delivery volumes increased several times last year. We can increase the supply of Russian machinery by 5-6 times. It means that Azerbaijani farmers will increase their production capabilities. The more agricultural products and grain will be produced, the less dependent they will be. Food security will be more stable. Therefore, we see that Azerbaijani farmers need our machinery, but unfortunately, there is a limited amount of funds allocated to finance leasing of agricultural machinery in the country. As soon as the decision to increase the leasing of Russian equipment is made Russian equipment will be delivered to Azerbaijani farmers first of all,'' Yevgeny Korchevoy said.
He added that there are more than 100 member companies in the Association of Agricultural Producers, but only three companies supply its products to Azerbaijan. "Accordingly, our task is to show how future cooperation with Azerbaijan is promising in order that as many Russian producers of agricultural machines as possible could find their partners and customers for their products," Korchevoy said.
For this purpose, the Association circulates information about the prospects and market dynamics in Azerbaijan: what they depend on and who are contact partners. "Certainly, the most important thing is demonstration exhibitions. We want to show all the advantages of Russian agricultural machinery in Azerbaijan to our customers and farmers of Azerbaijan in order that they could see that our equipment works much better than similar machinery from Europe or the US. But at the same time its prices are more affordable,'' Korchevoy concluded.
