BSEC official: Azerbaijan- Turkey joint projects important for region

By AzerNews

Azerbaijan and Turkey are the economically developed countries of the region, Deputy of Turkey's ruling party, co-chair of the NGO Forum of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) Ismail Safi said on October 10.

There are many economic projects implemented by Azerbaijan and Turkey, which are important not only for Baku and Ankara, but also for the entire region and one of these projects is Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline project (TANAP), he said.

Safi went on to say that Azerbaijan and Turkey have evolved at a time when other countries were not able to cope with the economic crisis.

The TANAP project, being developed by Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR jointly with the Turkish state pipeline company Botas and energy company TPAO, will deliver Shah Deniz gas to the Turkish-Greek border from eastern Turkey. The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters of gas a year. TANAP will link up with the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on the Turkish-Greek border.

Turkey is the third largest trade partner of Azerbaijan after Russia and the United States. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey amounted to $1.2 billion in the period of January-July, 2013.

Mutual investments between Azerbaijan and Turkey exceed $10 billion. The amount of Azerbaijani investments in Turkey in the coming years is projected at $21 billion.

According to the estimates, Turkish companies have invested $6.5 billion in Azerbaijan's economy so far.

Currently, there are 2,000 companies with Turkish capital operating in Azerbaijan, which constitute 36 percent of all foreign companies operating in the country.