Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

India, one of the largest economies in the world, is interested in increasing the trade turnover with Azerbaijan.

Indian ambassador to Baku Sanjay Rana made this statement during the opening of ‘Make in India’ event, organized jointly by the Azerbaijan National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations and Indian embassy in Baku on February 12.

Saying that the trade turnover, which amounted to $815 million in 2015, is a low index for the two countries, the ambassador stressed the necessity to increase the trade turnover in the near future.

“In particular, commissioning of the North-South transport corridor should contribute to this,” Rana said.

The North-South railway project connecting northern Europe to the south-east Asia, serve as a bridge connecting the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia with the capacity of 1.4 million passengers and 5-7 million metric tons of cargo per year.

The volume of cargo transportation through the corridor will amount to 6 million metric tons at the initial stage and will reach 15-20 million metric tons in the future.

Rana further noted that India is interested in cooperation in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and communications fields.

The country is particularly interested in cooperation in agriculture, in which the country has accumulated a lot of experience, according to Rana.

“I recently visited a tea plantation in Lankaran and Astara. We are extremely interested in the development of cooperation in this sector. India also has a great potential in the pharmaceutical industry and is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan in this sphere too,” the ambassador concluded.

Azerbaijan imports many goods from India including pharmaceuticals products, engineering goods, automobiles and spares, agricultural and meat products and IT services, while Indian companies’ regularly buy oil from Azerbaijan.

Indian tea and Basmati rice are very popular in Azerbaijan. Some $778 million of the total trade turnover accounted for the import of Azerbaijani goods in 2015.

Rana emphasized, India is ready to double the amount of investments in the development project of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

He said that Indian oil companies are very interested in oil fields in the Caspian Sea and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

"Currently, the volume of Indian investments in ACG is $1 billion. We could invest in this deposit in the same amount,” he added.

Indian company ONGC-Videsh holds 2.72 percent share in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan pipeline.

President of the Azerbaijan National Confederation of Entrepreneurs Mammad Musayev, in turn, talked about the need to develop cooperation with India in the field of information technologies.

"India is a leading country in the field of information technologies,” he said. “Azerbaijani entrepreneurs should take advantage of opportunities for cooperation in this sphere."

He voiced the importance of developing cooperation between the Indian and Azerbaijani entrepreneurs, hoping that cooperation between them may give impetus to the production of competitive products.

India and Azerbaijan enjoy age-old historical relations and cultural affinity. Business exchange between the two countries have emerged an important aspect of bilateral relations between the two sides.

Earlier, India’s Gas Authority of India limited and the State Oil Company SOCAR has signed a MoU to jointly pursue opportunities in LNG procurement and promotion.

Indian businessmen also show interest in participating in major business and events, including 'Baku Build', Azerbaijan International Travel and Tourism Fair (AITF).

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz