Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The National Accreditation Service under Azerbaijan's State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents has submitted documents to the European accreditation organization for membership, which will simplify the exports of Azerbaijani goods to European markets, principal consultant of the State Accreditation Service Javanshir Huseynov told journalists.

Accession of the State Accreditation Service to the organization is expected by the end of this year.

Food producers will be able to carry out their tests in Azerbaijan and submit protocols on the conducted monitoring, which will allow to obtain a certificate.

"With this certificate, the producer will get an opportunity to export his products to any European country without hindrance," Huseynov said.

He went on to say that in November last year the State Accreditation Service was admitted as an observer to the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation.

To date, nearly 300 laboratories have been accredited in Azerbaijan, including those in the food industry, light and heavy industries, machine building, metallurgy, construction and other sectors of the economy.

Gaining independence stimulated growth of Azerbaijan's economic and foreign trade relations with the neighboring and other world countries.

The free economy in the country, the private sector development, both the political and economic influence of Azerbaijan as well as its favorable geographic location and measures taken by the government have made the country's foreign trade one of the leading branches of the economy and led to the expansion of foreign trade.

Currently the interest and demand in the goods produced in Azerbaijan are increasing in world markets and the number of countries receiving these goods is on the rise. Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover has increased 8.8 times, exports by 11 times, and non-oil exports by 6.5 times in the last ten years.

Whereas the number of market partners of the country was 80 countries ten years ago, now the figure has reached 155.

Changes are taking place not only in the number of foreign trade partners, but also in the countries themselves. Earlier Azerbaijan's trading partners were mainly the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, but now this ratio has changed in favor of the European Union (EU) states.

The role of the EU countries in Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover began to increase after large-scale investments of foreign companies in the country's oil and gas sector. This trend has been especially discerned since the launch of the historic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

President of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Rufat Mammadov said earlier that significant growth is observed both in the export potential and in the number of foreign partners of Azerbaijan. According to him, the creation of new technological infrastructure in the country and production meeting the required standards have contributed to the growth of exports.

According to data from the State Customs Committee for January-July, the share of the EU countries in Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover continued to grow in 2013.

Azerbaijan increased trade with EU countries by 9.3 percent, while the annual growth of the total commodity turnover was 3.42 percent.

The total volume of Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $20.05 billion in January-July 2013, around $8.67 billion of which fell to trade with EU countries.

This means that currently around 43.2 percent of Azerbaijan's trade turnover falls to the EU compared to 41.3 percent in early 2013 and 40.97 percent in January-July 2012.

In recent years, the list of the most exported goods has been expanded as well. Whereas in 2003 this list included 1,218 types of goods, the figure reached 2,082 in 2011. The main goods exported to other countries include mineral products, including crude oil and oil products, precious metals, plastics, chemical products, precious stones and metals as well as textile materials.

Foodstuffs exported from Azerbaijan include tea, vegetables, sugar, canned fruits and vegetables.