Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Baku hosted the eighth meeting of the Belarus-Azerbaijan intergovernmental commission on trade-economic partnership on November 12.

The meeting was chaired by Azerbaijani First Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyyubov and Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Semashko.

During the meeting which was attended by deputy ministers and heads of large industrial enterprises of the two countries the sides discussed cooperation in various fields.

Addressing the meeting Eyyubov said that currently the relations between Azerbaijan and Belarus are developing and there is a huge potential for strengthening them.

Semashko, in turn, said that today the main goal is to discover new fields for expanding the cooperation between the two countries.

Later, Semashko visited the service center of the Ganja Automobile Plant where he became familiar with the cars produced by the company.

He viewed the buses and trucks assembled in Azerbaijan.

The first deputy prime minister highly regarded the work carried out by the Ganja Automobile Plant and expressed confidence in expansion of future cooperation.

The Azerbaijani company has long been cooperating with Belarusian producers of cars and tractors. The contract to assemble and sell the entire line of trucks and tractors of Minsk Automobile and Minsk tractor plant in Azerbaijan was signed at the end of November 2006.

The Ganja Plant is able to assemble up to 1,000 trucks and 2,000 tractors a year. Belarus and MAZ tractors are assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant now.

Azerbaijan and Belarus established diplomatic relations in 1993. In 2012, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $223.3 million.

There is vast potential for the development of investment cooperation between the two counties and for Azerbaijan's involvement in the projects implemented in Belarus.

Belarus is interested in increasing the capacity of Belarusian assembly plants operating in Azerbaijan, as well as implementation of new projects in construction, education, health, science and culture sectors.