Details added (first version posted on 16:58)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.11
Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Hungary and Azerbaijan have signed a declaration of strategic partnership, Budapest Business Journal reported.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev met on Nov.11 in Budapest and announced that Hungary and Azerbaijan have signed a declaration on strategic partnership.
Hungarian prime minister said it is in the interest of both Hungary and Europe to bring Azerbaijani gas to Central Europe.
Existing contracts guarantee the delivery of Azerbaijani energy to Southern Europe, but the conditions must be established to bring it to Central Europe, he added.
He urged European Union member states to set up a common energy market and "as a first step", to connect each other's gas networks.
President Ilham Aliyev, for his part, said that Azerbaijan represents a new source of energy for
Europe, adding that the country has a need for the European market, Hungary's Politics.hu news agency reported.
During the joint press conference with Hungarian prime minister, Aliyev said that the bilateral relations between the two countries are developing fast.
The head of state welcomed the presence of Hungarian companies on the Azerbaijani market, mainly in the spheres of agriculture, water management and infrastructure development.
Speaking about the signed declaration on strategic partnership between the two countries, Aliyev said it covered the common goals of Hungary and Azerbaijan, and secured the success of cooperation, as well as further aiding the development of ties between Azerbaijan and the
European Union.
Azerbaijani president invited Orban to pay another visit to Baku to continue the dialogue.
The gas, to be produced within the second stage of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas condensate field, is expected to be delivered to Europe via the Trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP) in 2019.
TAP project envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian Sea region to South Italy and further to Western Europe through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea. The total length of the pipeline will near 870 kilometers.
It is expected to start the construction of the pipeline in 2016. The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, with the possibility of expansion to 20 billion cubic meters per year.
Edited by CN