Azerbaijan, Russia eye expanding economic cooperation
By Rasana Gasimova
Russia is one of Azerbaijan’s main foreign trade partners. The country is the leader in the import of Azerbaijan’s non-oil products and today about 50 percent of Russia's trade in the South Caucasus region accounts for Azerbaijan.
On October 29, Baku hosted an Azerbaijani-Russian business meeting with the support of Azerbaijan's Economy Ministry, the Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO).
The event brought together more than 60 entrepreneurs in the food industry, healthcare, banking, logistics, tourism and other areas. During the event, they were informed about reforms carried out in Azerbaijan aimed at improving the country's business and investment climate.
Participants were also informed about the work done on promotion of Azerbaijani products in foreign markets and increase of exports, promotion of the "Made in Azerbaijan" brand, presentations on the economic and trade potential, investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and St. Petersburg.
During the event, the entrepreneurs discussed the expansion of existing relationships and the establishment of new business partnerships.
Note that Azerbaijan is one of the main economic partners of Russia among the CIS countries. Interregional cooperation plays an important role in the development of Russian-Azerbaijani trade and economic relations and the increase in trade turnover.
About 700 companies with Russian capital are operating in Azerbaijan. So far, the value of investments by Russian companies in Azerbaijan amounted to $4.7 billion, and the Azerbaijani investments in Russia stood at $1.2 billion.
The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia amounted to $2.55 billion in 2018, which is 19.1 percent more than in 2017, according to Azerbaijan’s State Statistics Committee. The share of trade operations with Russia in 2018 accounted for 8.25percent of the total foreign trade turnover of Azerbaijan.
Last year, Russia’s exports to Azerbaijan were mainly food products and agricultural raw materials ($422.1 million), machinery, equipment and vehicles ($381.6 million), metals and products from them ($315.9 million), wood and pulp-paper products ($238.1 million) as well as chemical products and rubber ($198 million).
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