Azerbaijan, Baku /Trend, E.Mehdiyev/
The new British Ambassador to Azerbaijan Peter Bateman believes that the trade and investment are the best ways of bringing countries and peoples together.
"As a new ambassador, I have to devote my time to entire spectrum of activities within the United Kingdom and Azerbaijan. But I am a great believer in trade and investment as a best way to bring two countries together," Bateman told Trend on Nov. 25.
The ambassador said one of his ambitions in Azerbaijan is to encourage more trade and investment activity both ways between UK and Azerbaijan, encourage more British companies and also to encourage Azerbaijani companies to seek commercial and investment advantages in UK.
Touching upon the level of economic cooperation between UK and Azerbaijan, the ambassador said the two countries have a very good record.
"British investment in Azerbaijan is about 50 percent, but we can never be happy. We always want to do better, to do more. And at the moment, there is a huge British investment in oil and gas and construction, but I would like to expend up investments in other sectors. One of the things I am trying to do is to work out what of those may be the most promising sectors, may be education, tourism," he said.
Bateman stated that 2011 is a huge year for Azerbaijan in the field of tourism and there may be opportunities for tourism.