Azerbaijan, Estonia discuss expanding trade turnover

By Azernews

By Amina Nazarli

Estonia’s Minister of Public Administration Mihhail Korb, who is on a working visit to Baku, holds meetings with the country’s leadership to discuss the bilateral relations.

During the Baku visit, Korb, who is also the head of the Azerbaijani-Estonian Intergovernmental Commission, met with Prime Minister Artur Rasizade on April 6.

Praising the political ties between Azerbaijan and Estonia, Rasizade stressed the necessity of expanding the economic relations. The Premier pointed out good potential in various areas, including technology, telecommunications, agriculture and trade.

The PM highlighted the opportunities of the North-South Transport Corridor and Azerbaijan`s work under the project.  

The North-South Corridor will connect the railways of Azerbaijan and Iran, which in turn will provide a wider transport connection between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Due to its location on the corridor and role as a transit country, Azerbaijan stands to gain substantially from the North-South project.

Touching upon the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Rasizade stressed that the conflict must be resolved on the basis of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity and inviolability of borders.

In turn, Korb noted that during the visit he conducted very fruitful discussions with Azerbaijani counterparts. He said there are favorable opportunities for Azerbaijani and Estonian businessmen in both countries.

A delegation headed by Korb also met with Azerbaijan`s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

The sides discussed cooperation between Azerbaijan and Estonia in various areas, and hailed the activity of the Intergovernmental Commission.

The two ministers also stressed the importance of the next meeting of the Commission in terms of developing trade and economic relations between the two countries.

They pointed out favorable opportunities for the cooperation in the fields of transport, information technologies, agriculture, tourism and medicine. The two also noted the significance of expanding trade turnover and exploring export opportunities between Azerbaijan and Estonia.

President Ilham Aliyev also received a delegation led by the Minister, and hailed the importance of the Estonian delegation`s visit to Azerbaijan in expanding the bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Pointing out the activities of the Azerbaijani-Estonian Intergovernmental Commission, the head of state underlined the significance of another meeting of the Commission in terms of discussing the issues on how to further develop trade and economic relations between the two countries.

Korb, for his part, pointed out the experience of cooperation between the two countries, saying this experience covers mostly the service sector.

He said although trade with Azerbaijan is not so great, there are development trends in this field. The Estonian public administration minister praised the fact that compared to last year the bilateral trade has increased almost 2.5 times.