Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 15
By Orkhan Quluzade – Trend:
Qatar and Azerbaijan have great potential to reach strategic partnership in agriculture, tourism and construction, Qatari Ambassador to Azerbaijan Yousef bin Hassan Al Saai told Trend.
The current level of trade and economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Qatar, despite of the existence of normative legal base and great potential, doesn’t correspond to the level of political relations, said Al Saai.
The diplomat noted that the creation of a joint investment fund would be one of the steps giving a strong momentum to the development of relations in economic and investment spheres in parallel to special political relations between Doha and Baku.
“I am confident that soon we will witness the expansion of cooperation in the spheres of economy and investments between Azerbaijan and Qatar, from which both countries will take an advantage,” said Al Saai.
He emphasized that the visit of Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to Azerbaijan in January gave a momentum to the strengthening of the two countries’ economic relations.
“The first meeting of intergovernmental commission on trade, economic and technical cooperation was held during the visit of Qatari foreign minister to Baku, after which a protocol was signed,” said the ambassador. “The visit opened big opportunities for mutual trade and investments.”
Al Saai noted that the relations between Qatar and Azerbaijan have a special nature.
Trade turnover between the two countries decreased by 2.9 times and amounted to $170,240 in 2016, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee.
The decline in the foreign trade between Azerbaijan and Qatar is related to a reduction of 4.5 times in exports, while the imports increased by 3.6 times to $62,300.
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