The Caspian Oil & Gas Conference is fully supported by and organised in close cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and Energy of Azerbaijan and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR. This year the two-day conference brought together around 50 high-caliber speakers, 20 sponsors and more than 500 oil & gas executives.
Ernst & Young played a prominent role at the 18th Caspian Oil & Gas Conference, which took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Baku on 8-9 June 2011.
Ilgar Veliyev, Ernst & Young's Country Managing Partner for Azerbaijan, spoke at the conference on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Azerbaijan. He highlighted the importance of developing the non-oil sector of the economy and the need for further investments in human capital as well as the need to continue regulatory reforms in order to make Azerbaijan more attractive to foreign investors. Ilgar Veliyev stressed that Ernst & Young, the first international accounting firm to open a practice in Azerbaijan, believes in the high potential of Azerbaijan's economy and will continue to support its development.
The event became the premier oil and gas forum in Azerbaijan, bringing major national and international oil and gas companies together with key regional operators and suppliers. Caspian Oil & Gas reflects the abundance of business opportunities in the Caspian region and offers exclusive networking opportunities with key regional decision makers.
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our 141,000 people are united by our shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality. We make a difference by helping our people, our clients and our wider communities achieve their potential.
Ernst & Young expands its services and resources in accordance with clients' needs throughout the CIS. 3,500 professionals work at 18 offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Kazan, Krasnodar, Togliatti, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Almaty, Astana, Atyrau, Baku, Kyiv, Donetsk, Tashkent, Tbilisi, and Minsk.
For more information about our organization, please visit www.ey.com .
Ernst & Young in Azerbaijan
Ernst & Young has made a major commitment to Azerbaijan and the region with the opening of our office in Baku 1 7 years ago and the growth of our local financial service industry group. Today, in addition to being a leading audit firm in Azerbaijan, we are the leading firm in the region. Because of our experience and depth of knowledge, we have been able to assist both domestic and international companies as well as state-owned entities in developing them to face the challenges of the international economy.
We currently have more than 120 staff in our Baku practice, which served our clients, including banks and other financial institutions, in Azerbaijan. The strength of Ernst & Young in the Caspian Region and the firm's commitment of resources are important to the entities operating in the region. It means that as we grow, Ernst & Young will continue to demonstrate a tradition of hiring and training local professionals to be leaders in our practice.
For more information, please refer to http: //www.ey.com/Azerbaijan.