Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17
By Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
Belarus seeks to increase trade turnover with Azerbaijan, head of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vladimir Ulakhovich told Trend Oct. 17.
"We intend to bring the trade turnover with Azerbaijan up to $0.5 billion in the next few years,” he said. “The trade turnover growth is based on industrial cooperation, joint production, rather than ordinary trade. First, the trade model is gradually becoming obsolete. If we rely on ordinary trade, such business contacts will not have great prospects. But the establishment of joint production in machine tool building, machine building and petrochemistry is very promising.”
Ulakhovich said that the economies of Azerbaijan and Belarus are mutually complementary.
"Azerbaijan has big natural resources as opposed to Belarus,” he said. “But Belarus managed to preserve a well-developed machine-building complex, a good agricultural sector and other spheres. In this regard, Belarus can be a partner not only in ordinary trade, but also in joint cooperation, the joint promotion of our products to the markets of third countries which are near Azerbaijan. I see considerable potential in those sectors.”
“The development of new technologies is also promising,” Ulakhovich said. “Belarus is engaged in such areas as nanotechnology, space materials, IT-technologies and we can also develop this potential together.”
According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Belarus amounted to $93.76 million in January-August 2017, $83.85 million of which accounted for the import of Belarusian products.