Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 20
By Matanat Nasibova - Trend:
Azerbaijan is interested in the establishment of joint ventures with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the fields of industry, logistics and transport, trade representative of Azerbaijan in Dubai Elnur Aliyev told Trend.
"At the same time, we are interested in attracting a big number of Arab companies to the country, because Azerbaijan is an ideal market for foreign investors because it has access to key markets of neighboring countries in the region," he said.
To date, more than 250 companies from the UAE work in Azerbaijan. Baku-Dubai-Baku, Baku-Sharjah-Baku flights operate between the countries.
"In general, Azerbaijan and the UAE have great potential for cooperation and may successfully develop cooperation in the spheres of industry, transport, trade, investment, agriculture, tourism and high technologies," he added.
"Currently, the work is being carried out to accelerate the dynamics of trade turnover between the countries," Aliyev said. "The main share of export of Azerbaijani products to the UAE accounts for Dubai, to which mainly agricultural products are supplied."
"Vegetables and fruits in big volumes, while meat in small volumes, are exported to Dubai," he said. "We intend to maximally increase meat supplies in the future, taking into account the needs of the Dubai market and the growing opportunities for production of this kind of products in Azerbaijan."
"Azerbaijan mainly imports high-tech products, electronics, industrial goods and building materials from the UAE," he said. "Taking into account that the UAE is one of the biggest importers of agricultural products, we expect that our high-quality products will have a niche in this promising market."
"As the UAE has a big potential for re-export, the supply of Azerbaijani goods to the UAE market, may contribute to the supply of our domestic products to the markets of other countries of the Persian Gulf in the future," he added.
"Besides agricultural products, Azerbaijan intends to increase supplies of various types of industrial goods, namely, aluminum plates, pipes, etc. to the UAE," Aliyev said.
According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE amounted to $28.457 million in January-July 2018, which is 67 percent more than in the same period of 2017.
At the same time, exports from Azerbaijan to the UAE amounted to $12.317 million (an increase of 58.8 percent), while imports - $16.139 million (by 73.8 percent).