BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Slovakia is currently working on identifying business areas that will contribute to increase the bilateral trade between Slovakia with Azerbaijan, Head of mission of the Slovak Embassy in Azerbaijan Milan Lajciak told Trend.
Lajciak noted that bilateral relations of Azerbaijan and Slovakia are friendly with a constructive attitude.
“We do not have any burdens or open issues in our bilateral context. Recently we have enjoyed intensive political dialogue that was the last year temporarily interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
He said the priority of bilateral relations of two countries belongs to the field of economic cooperation.
“We had a record of growing trade volume during the last period. The trade volume in 2019 represented 24.44 million euros. Azerbaijan export stands for 9.68 million euros (mainly mineral fuels, mineral oils, fruits and nuts) and Slovak export for 13.25 million euros (mainly automotive parts, logistic containers, cables and uninsulated wires),” Lajciak explained.
However, during 2020 trade volume between the countries went down due to COVID-19 pandemic similar to majority of other countries, Lajciak said.
“Trade volume statistics for the last year (January through November 2020) show a certain decline to 18.84 million euros. We are currently working on identification business areas that will contribute to increase our bilateral trade,” he said.
Lajciak added that Slovak economic activities to Azerbaijan in the recent past included participation of Slovak companies in highway construction, locomotives repair, railway containers delivery, etc.
“It would be mutually advantageous to go further and to explore opportunities in production cooperation, restructuring of Azerbaijani enterprises and modernizing transport infrastructure,” he said.