Azerbaijan's products make way for European market
By Nigar Orujova
Azerbaijan's products will be labeled with the CE mark (Conformite Europeenne) from September.
Director of Azerbaijani Standardization and Certification
Institute, Sabig Abdullayev, announced about this on June 9.
Abdullayev said this procedure is among the activities of the
German TUV company, which is one of the famous commercial leaders
in the area of products inspection.
"Labeling Azerbaijani products in accordance with European
directives and standards allows free exporting of Azerbaijani goods
with CE mark to the European markets without additional
requirements," he said.
Abdullayev added the TUV will cooperate with various Azerbaijani
companies and government authorities, in particular with the
institute tasked with labeling domestic products with the CE
mark.
"In Azerbaijan, TUV will also supervise construction processes as
an independent third party, regulatory inspection and
certification," he said.
CE mark is a special sign put on the products, thus certifying that
the products comply with the main requirements of the directives of
the EU. The sign indicates that the product is not harmful or
dangerous to the health of consumers. It also shows that the
products are environmentally friendly. It is the only sign of
compliance with European standards and directives.
The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and EU countries amounted to roughly $4.3billion million in January-April 2014.
Economy expert Vugar Bayramov believes that matching Azerbaijani production with the European standards will open wide opportunities to Azerbaijani businessmen.
A great deal of production in Azerbaijan are not corresponding to the European quality and thus cannot enter the broad European market, he said.
"Today, the European Union is one of the biggest supporters of Azerbaijan's trade," Bayramov said. "Sixty percent of the trade turnover in Azerbaijan falls to the EU. Currently, Azerbaijan mostly imports oil and oil production to Europe, while import is consisting of the non-oil production."
"New quality standards will create a possibility to export more non-oil production to Europe," he said.
Bayramov believes the agricultural sector will also benefit from the European standards and will increase at least by 10 percent.
Economist Oqtay Haqverdiyev also said this is a positive sign, as using the CE mark will force the producers in Azerbaijan to create goods matching with European standards.
Azerbaijan is currently developing its non-oil sector and serious achievements were secured in this sphere. The average annual growth rate in the non-oil sector over the past 10 years reached almost 11 percent.
Moreover, the average pace of annual real growth in GDP in the non-oil sector is expected to be more than 7 percent by 2020.