Czech president to visit Azerbaijan in May

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has scheduled an official visit to Azerbaijan for mid-May.

"We are working on arranging the Czech president's visit to Azerbaijan," Azerbaijani Ambassador to the Czech Republic Tahir Taghizade said. "The visit is scheduled for mid-May."

The visit will be paid at the invitation of President Ilham Aliyev. He extended the invitation during a presidential meeting at the first summit of the Eastern Partnership in Prague in May 2009.

A business forum is expected to be held within the visit to Baku.

Besides the governmental delegation, the president will be accompanied by a business delegation that will participate in the forum. Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic were established in 1993. The Embassy of the Czech Republic has been operating in Baku since December 2009. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Prague began to operate two years earlier.

Relations between the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan are developing in
many areas.

Visits paid by officials of the Czech Republic to Azerbaijan have played an important role in intensifying bilateral relations. Senior representatives of the Czech Republic have paid official visits to Baku. For instance, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg visited Baku in 2008.

Aliyev and Finance Minister Samir Sharifov visited the Czech Republic in 2009 and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov visited the country in 2008.

Azerbaijan is the largest trading partner of the Czech Republic in the South Caucasus.

The turnover is increasing every year. It hit $38 million in 2010. Roughly $37.78 million fell to the share of Czech imports, and $0,23 million to Azerbaijani exports to the Czech Republic.

Trucks, construction materials, printing machines, medicines, cosmetics, cleaners, and glass products are among the main Czech goods exported to Azerbaijan.

Oil, cotton, hazelnuts are among the main Czech goods imported from Azerbaijan. The Czech Republic covers 20 percent of the country's oil demand through imports from Azerbaijan.


/Trend/