Azerbaijan, Baku, 20 August / Trend corr. I.Khalilova / The International Finance Cooperation (IFC) is prepared to assist the Azerbaijani companies in entering foreign markets, Lars Tunell, the general executive director if the IFC and executive vicepresident of the World Bank group on private sector, who was in Baku to pay one-day visit, said on 19 August.
"The cooperation has a great experience to support so called the south cooperation," he said.
The IFC assisted Turkish companies to enter Central Asia, the Egyptian - to Middle East and Brazilian - to Russia.
At the same time, Tunell believes that it is most important to develop border trade, which was discussed with the Azerbaijani Government on 19 August.
"Naturally, the Georgian events are considered a tragedy for the whole region and within the framework of security it is possible to close borders, how it happens in such cases. However, I believe that, on the contrary, it is necessary to develop regional trade, which could positively influence economy and welfare of countries' population in the condition of the current events," Tunell said.
On 19 August, he met with the Georgian officials in Baku, who came to meet with him.
The Russian Government has instructed to close borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia for everybody, except for the CIS member-countries' citizens. Restriction on foreign citizens' admission and their transport means through Russia's border with Azerbaijan and Georgia is attributed to the necessity to prevent crossing the Russian territory by members of foreign terrorist organizations, importing of arms and explosive substances.
Instruction on closure of border excludes railway locomotives and carriages from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. However, this document bans crossing the border by citizens of these countries. Rossiyskaya gazeta newspaper published the Russian Government's instruction 592, dated 12 August 2008, RIA Novosti reported.
The exchange rate for US dollar is AZN 0.8151 on 19 August.
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