GUAM countries' tourism and culture ministers to discuss cooperation

GUAM member states' tourism and culture ministers are going to discuss cooperation in the sphere of tourism and culture in June in Baku, the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM reported.

GUAM Secretary General Valeri Chechelashvili discussed the upcoming meeting with Ukrainian minister of culture and tourism Mikhail Kulinyak. During the meeting they also discussed the process of implementing the project of joint tourist product GUAM into partnership with Japan. The sides stressed the importance of cooperation in tourism to improve the investment attractiveness of the region.

The sides also discussed opportunities of implementation of the GUAM projects in the sphere of culture, in particular organization of joint exhibitions, publications and themed evenings.

Four post-Soviet republics; Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, established the GUAM format in 1997 during a summit of presidents of European Union countries in Strasburg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined this format, but after 4 years the country signed out.

In 2006, the first summit of this format in Kiev decided to declare GUAM an international organization with a new name: "Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM".


/Trend/