The Ambassador of Latvia to Azerbaijan, Mihails Popkovs, exclusively informed Trend that the first meeting of the Azerbaijani-Latvian Economic Co-operation Commission will take place in Baku in the near future. The meeting is planned to be held in the second half of February or in March. According to the Ambassador, a Governmental Delegation from Latvia will arrive in Baku. It is the first meeting of the Commission. Presently the project of the agenda of the meeting is being agreed with the Azerbaijani side.
The Ambassador said that the Commission has been created after the official visit of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to Latvia in October of last year. From the Azerbaijani side, the Chairman of the Commission is the Ministry of Economic Development, Heydar Babayev, and the Head of the Latvian side has not been defined yet.
Earlier, the Latvian Minister of Economy Aigars Stokenbergs had been appointed the Head of the Latvian side of the Commission, but after the rearrangements in the government of the country, the new Minister of Economy Yuris Strods has to be appointed to this position.
According to the Ambassador, the agenda of the meeting will include the questions such as development of the co-operation in such priority spheres as trade, economy, tourism, education, humanitarian sphere, etc. The economical co-operation will take a primary place on the agenda.
In addition, the sides will work out the agreement-legal base between the two countries, which comprises of nearly 20 documents. Presently the Latvian side offered to include in the agenda the preparation and signing of the Agreement of co-operation between Azerbaijan and Latvia with regards to the banking sector and banking inspection. We hope that the Azerbaijani side will approve this item of the agenda and we will consider this question, the diplomat said, adding that there are other prospective spheres for the co-operation, including tourism. Last year, the Director General of the Latvian State Agency for Tourism Development visited Azerbaijan, held meeting at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as well as with the heads of the tourism companies. And we intent to continue this work, he said.