By Azernews

By Rasana Gasimova

The Czech Republic is Azerbaijan’s fifth largest trade partner and the ninth largest foreign investor in the economy of our state. 

Czech Republic wants to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the sphere of sophisticated technology usage, Milan Eckert, the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Baku has told Trend.

“I’m proud that Czech companies had an opportunity to participate in all the strategic projects that had a great impact on the development of Azerbaijani economy. Azerbaijan has put a lot of effort into the development of its transport infrastructure, and these efforts paid off. Our goal is to move from the development of transport infrastructure to the areas of economy with a higher degree of complexity and even greater prospects for long-term cooperation, such as engineering, the use of intelligent technologies and modern approaches in agriculture,” Eckert said.

He also mentioned that all the works done for the modernization of the Azerbaijani part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway is carried out by the Czech company Moravia Steel and its subsidiary T?inec Ironworks.

“The first one was responsible for the project documentation and its implementation on the ground. The latter was responsible for the supply of high-quality steel products such as rails, accessories for railway superstructures and so on. This grand project was launched in 2011 and included a complete replacement of 917 kilometers of railways and other necessary equipment. For practical reasons, the construction works were divided into three phases, the last of which was successfully completed in June 2019. The investments necessary for the implementation of the project (about $1 billion) were provided by a consortium of Czech and international banks and insured by the Czech Export Guarantee and Insurance Corporation,” said Eckert.

The diplomat noted that the two countries are standing at the threshold of a new era of their economic relations.

“We were able to quickly expand our cooperation to such an extent that the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan became strategic partners, and the amount of mutual trade reached $1.3 million. In the first half of 2019, trade turnover reached $606 million. I can confidently say that this year’s indicators will be similar, if not higher,” he said.

The close relations between Azerbaijan and Czechia are also evidenced by the fact that the Czech Republic takes the ninth place in terms of foreign investment in the Azerbaijani economy.

Czech companies operating in Azerbaijan are actively working to strengthen relations between the two countries.