Azernews.Az

BAKU – Ukraine-Azerbaijan trade turnover increased 84 percent as of the end of 2010, reaching the figure reported prior to the world economic crisis, Ukraine’s trade minister Andriy Klyuev said on a visit to Baku Thursday.

"Ukraine and Azerbaijan are linked by firm economic ties and we intend to develop them further," Klyuev told journalists.

The two countries’ intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation met in the Azerbaijani capital on Thursday to discuss ways of boosting bilateral relations focusing on energy, machine building and agriculture.

Azerbaijani First Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyyubov, who co-chairs the commission, noted that bilateral trade turnover nearly doubled to $1.4 billion last year. He said Ukraine is Azerbaijan’s sixth biggest trading partner and the second one in the former Soviet bloc CIS. Azerbaijan’s exports to the country surged almost five-fold to reach $900 million, while imports from Ukraine decreased 9 percent to $500 million in 2010. Oil and oil products accounted for most of the resource-rich South Caucasus republic’s exports, while Ukraine’s exports were dominated by metallurgy, machine building, aviation, and electrical appliances, Eyyubov said.

36 Ukrainian companies are operating in Azerbaijan. In Ukraine, Socar Energy Ukraine, owned by Azerbaijani state energy firm Socar, is operating in the oil and gas sector.

Minister Klyuev in his remarks said it was important to bring bilateral trade "to a strategic level", adding that its volume could be increased to $2 billion by the end of 2011.