BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 22
Trend:
Azerbaijan second in the world in terms of the accessibility of electricity, said Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev during the opening of the newly-reconstructed main control, scientific, training and laboratory complex of AzerEnergy Open Joint Stock Company in Baku, Trend reports.
“Restoration work is also underway at other power plants. I am sure that we will achieve our goals in this direction. All this work, as well as stability, calm, economic development of our country, growth of the industrial potential and, at the same time the construction of energy lines with neighboring countries contribute to the fact that foreign investors are already showing great interest in this area. We always wanted that. But seeing that foreign investors do not show interest in this area, we carry out all the work ourselves,” said President Ilham Aliyev.
The head of state noted that a certain part of this work was covered by a loan but the main part was resolved at the expense of our own funds, and today Azerbaijan has one of the most efficient energy systems on a global scale.
“This is also confirmed by a report of the Davos World Economic Forum. I am saying this for a reason. In particular, the report of the Forum ranks Azerbaijan second in the world in terms of the accessibility of electricity. Just imagine – in second place. Only one country is ahead of us. So we are ahead of many developed countries. And we have done that in a short time. Our independence is not even 30 years old. When we became an independent country, our energy economy was in a terrible state. It came into an even more terrible state afterwards. We remember those years. A certain company called “Barmek” appeared here, which, on the basis of shady dealings and conspiracy with former officials, took possession of the entire energy sector of the city of Baku and, instead of investing money, brought this system to a deplorable state and took millions outside of Azerbaijan. As if this wasn’t enough, it even wanted to sue us. On my instruction, an end was put to that dirty conspiracy, this fraudulent company was expelled from Azerbaijan and the AzerIshig Joint Stock Company was set up on my order. It was me who called it AzerIshig. We returned all our energy facilities into state ownership. If we hadn’t done this, we would have lived in darkness today, the entire property of AzerEnergy would have been plundered, including this building. Imagine, they put up a 13,000-square-meter building for privatization and tried to sell it for nothing. If I hadn’t found that out, if they hadn’t informed me, if I hadn’t given the order, they would have sold it. And look at what a beautiful building you are located in now. This is practically the main center to regulate our energy system. SCADA system, dispatch system, control system – everything is here. Where else could these be placed? They wanted to destroy our energy system,” said President Ilham Aliyev.
The head of state pointed out that therefore, our citizens should know and remember this, remember where we started and where we are now – we are in second place in the world.
“At present, our energy potential underpins the growing economy. In the first three months of this year – although oil prices fell and the coronavirus pandemic seriously affected our country – non-oil industry growth was 23 percent. All these growing industrial enterprises require energy. Generation, transmission, uninterrupted supply – all this is provided today. Therefore, I believe that the opening of this building today has a huge symbolic meaning. Naturally, the Institute, the Main Control Center, the Training and Laboratory Center, and the Dispatch Center are located here. At the same time, this reflects the new face of our energy system. This building was removed from auction and returned to power engineers, to its actual owners. Therefore, citizens working in this building must honor their duty. They must make sure that our energy supply is always at a high level,” said President Ilham Aliyev.