Yana Krimpe: "Absence of Estonian embassy in Azerbaijan is compensated with active business contacts between our countries"

Estonia's interest towards Azerbaijani market and vise versa is proven by the 25 times growth in Estonian investments into Azerbaijani economy, the number of bilateral meetings, held through the past two years of existence of commercial chamber, said chairman of the Estonian-Azerbaijani commercial chamber Yana Krimpe.

According to her, our countries have held meetings on almost all levels through the past year and in the first half of the next year President of Estonia is going to visit Azerbaijan, after which Estonia hopes for the response visit of the Azerbaijani President.

She noted that Estonia has a great potential for development of cooperation in the IT sphere and this issue was especially discussed at the meeting with the president.

"Today we are working at joint projects on the application of Estonian IT technologies in Azerbaijani market. A joint company for promotion of advanced IT technologies on the Azerbaijani market has already been created.

According to her, the global economic crisis hinders the soonest settlement of the issue of opening of an embassy of Estonia in Azerbaijan, as Estonia is a small country and it has to reduce the number of its diplomatic missions in the world.

"At the same time, the absence of embassies does not hinder the development of relations between our countries. In the near future there will be appointed the honored consul of Estonia in Azerbaijan. We have an active diaspora and active businessmen. And certainly our commercial chamber is always ready to serve you", she said.

Krimpe noted that Estonian investors are greatly interested in production sphere in Azerbaijan, production of building materials, petrochemical industry and certainly the IT sector, where Estonia is among leaders in the world.

"Unfortunately, there observed a unilateral movement of Estonian investors to the Azerbaijani market, which means that we are investing to Azerbaijan more than Azerbaijani entrepreneurs into our country.

But we want to see Azerbaijani investors in Estonia. Though our country, like entire Europe, currently sustains crisis, anyway Estonia is a gate to Europe, an access to important port, unique spheres of production. I think Azerbaijani investors should pay attention to Estonia", concluded Krimpe.

/Day.Az/