Baku, Azerbaijan, March 12
By Ali Mustafayev – Trend:
Azerbaijan is a vital link in the East-West corridor and Romania is very interested in taking part in the multilateral arrangements aimed at facilitating cargo flows between Central Asia and Europe through Azerbaijan, Member of Parliament of Romania, President of Azerbaijan-Romania Parliamentary Friendship Group Victor Paul Dobre told Trend.
"Azerbaijan plays an important role in strengthening Europe’s energy security through the construction of the Southern Gas Corridor. This project will provide new opportunities for cooperation of Romania and Azerbaijan; in future Caspian gas could reach also Central Europe via Romania. At the same time, I would like to mention another positive factor for the development of concrete projects - the presence of SOCAR in the Romanian distribution market,” said Dobre.
“On our side, we have an excellent entry point in the Port of Constantza, both in terms of capacities and connectivity, to the European markets. Further on, I think we should pay more attention to developing bilateral projects in areas with great potential, such as agriculture, communications, tourism or the IT sector, where Romania has world leading specialists."
Dobre added that Azerbaijan and Romania have excellent relations, based on traditional friendship, trust and mutual respect.
“As you know, Romania has been the first EU Member State to establish a Strategic Partnership with Azerbaijan in 2009. This has provided us with a solid framework to develop the bilateral contacts and cooperation in various fields – political, economic, cultural and educational, and the people-to-people contacts. Moreover, we share the same interests when it comes to projects with strategic relevance, such as energy and transportation,” said Dobre.