Georgia increases import volume from Azerbaijan
By Nigar Orujova
Georgia continues to increase import of goods from Azerbaijan. As part of this trend, the country imported products worth $565.89 million from Azerbaijan in January-November 2014, Georgia’s National Statistics Service said in its report on foreign trade.
The volume of import from Azerbaijan to Georgia increased by 1.8 percent during this year. During the mentioned period, Georgia imported $555.81 million worth of Azerbaijani products.
Azerbaijan ranks third among importers of Georgia. The share of Azerbaijan's export in the total volume of the products imported to Georgia stands at 7.3 percent.
Georgia mainly imports gas, petroleum products, electricity and other products from Azerbaijan.
Turkey is the main importer of Georgia. The volume of Georgia's imports from this country stood at $1.6 billion, or 20.1 percent of the total volume of import in January-November. China ranks second with 8.7 percent share ($673.76 million).
Georgia has also increased the import of construction materials produced in Azerbaijan. The increase of 29.1 percent was marked in January-November, GruzStat reports.
The share of building materials in the total exports of Azerbaijan to Georgia for the period totaled 4.45 percent.
During the reported period, 86,440 tons of iron rods in the amount of $53.5 million dollars were exported from Georgia to Azerbijan. . In the same period last year, Azerbaijan imported 59,850 tons of iron rods in the amount of $37.53 million.
In addition, Azerbaijan imported16,800 cars totaling $252.3 million from Georgia in the same period, GruzStat said.
The share of the cars in the total volume of Georgian exports to Azerbaijan amounted to 50.9 percent in this period. The share of Azerbaijan in the total exports of Georgia in this category is 49.4 percent.
Notwithstanding this index, export of cars from Azerbaijan in terms of value decreased by 31.8 percent and in quantitative by 24,400 units (59.2 percent) compared to the same period last year.
The export of cars from Georgia to Azerbaijan continues to decrease with the Azerbaijan’s shift to the Euro-4 ecological standard as of this April.