Azerbaijan, Baku, 8 April / corr. Trend I. Khalilova/ The second meeting of the Azerbaijan-U.S. Inter-Government Commission on Economic Partnership has been postponed to May or June, said Scott Tailor, the USAID coordinator to Azerbaijan. The meeting to be held in Washington was previously planned to take place in April.
"The date of the meeting is not so important, what is important is that we are currently ready to provide projects in Azerbaijan with financial support," said Tailor.
According to Tailor, progress has been made in implementing the projects which has contributed to the rise in volume of investments and life standards in areas of the country. Economic and social reforms have also been achieved.
The agreement on joint financing of five projects is expected to be signed in the forthcoming meeting, Paul Davis, the senior economist in USAID said. These five projects focus on stabilizing the financial sector, competition in the private sector, trade and investments and development of macroeconomic policy in the districts. These 2-year projects are valued at $20mln. "The key goal is to lay a foundation for partnership between Azerbaijan and U.S. through joint financing," said Davis.
Samir Sharifov, the Finance Minister of Azerbaijan and Daniel Sullivan, the Assistant to U.S. Secretary of State are the co-chairmen of the Commission. The first meeting of Azerbaijan-U.S. economic commission was held on 7 February 2007 in Baku. On 15-16 August, Sullivan visited Baku to see whether the decisions of the first meeting were being realized. The sides set up a working group on joint financing and selected the fields for this purpose including social, integration and the development of civil society.
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