Prospects of Azerbaijani-Russian economic relations discussed in Baku
On December 16, a conference on the topic “Current state and prospects of the Russian-Azerbaijani economic relations in the context of integration processes” was opened at ADA University. Report informs that ADA Rector Hafiz Pashayev, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Overchuk, Russian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mikhail Bocharnikov, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, and other officials are attending.
Addressing the conference, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Overchuk noted that there is significant potential for the development of relations between Azerbaijan and Russia in the modernization of railways, the creation of high-tech enterprises, the production of renewable energy, and logistics.
Russian business is interested in working in Azerbaijan. The volume of accumulated direct Russian investments in the economy of Azerbaijan exceeds $4.5 billion with the Azerbaijani investments in Russia amounting to $1.5 billion. Russia is the largest consumer of non-energy products of Azerbaijan.
“Speaking today about international relations, more and more we are talking about relations in the context between macroregions, and we see that integration processes are effectively developing all over the world. On everyone’s lips is European integration, we see what processes are going on in North America, in the Asia-Pacific region, Southeast Asia. We follow and participate in the processes associated with the Chinese initiative One Belt, One Road, said Aleksey Overchuk.
The possibilities of realizing the potential of the Eurasian Economic Union and the entry of the EAEU member states to a qualitatively new level of cooperation are considered, which implies a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, improvement of environmental performance, and the introduction of green technologies in all states of the union. “We are constantly working on the development of industrial cooperation in new areas. There are programs on the creation of cooperation chains in the aircraft industry. We are starting to create electric vehicles, so the scope of economic cooperation within the union is very extensive today,” said the Russian deputy prime minister.
Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev stressed in his speech that Azerbaijan is a key trade partner of Russia in the South Caucasus region. Important joint industrial and investment projects are at various stages of implementation. The first train was successfully dispatched in a test mode within the framework of the Agroexpress project.
Representatives of the scientific community, experts and pundits from Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, heads of international organizations, who spoke at the conference, presented their visions of the prospects for the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation within the framework of integration processes taking place in the Eurasian space.