BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.25
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
North Macedonia and Azerbaijan are negotiating on a bilateral Agreement on trade and economic cooperation, Minister of Economy of North Macedonia, Kreshnik Bekteshi told Trend.
“North Macedonia and Azerbaijan has established diplomatic relations on June 28, 1995. In respect to diplomacy, both countries approached to create favorable conditions in development of trade and economic cooperation. At the moment there is ongoing negotiation for concluding a bilateral Agreement on trade and economic cooperation, wishing to promote and expand its relations of friendship. The Agreement covers various economic developments in order to promote the economic cooperation. Identifying potentially exportable products, exploring and developing of new markets, technology transfer, production and treatment of chemical and petrochemical industry and developing projects in environment and waste management, are the main topics that both countries are negotiating to be part of the Agreement,” the minister said.
Bekteshi noted that North Macedonia strongly supports Azerbaijan to become full fledge member in WTO, where to both countries can enhance the trading opportunities and trade liberalization in line with General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT 1994) and Agreement establishing WTO, in order to build trade capacity, to implement technical standards, and to permit trade exceptions in goods and services.
“The new negotiated development should improve the trade exchange between North Macedonia and Azerbaijan, which in the past several years is characterized by a very small volume, by ranging to US $392 thousand in 2018, US $ 803 thousand in 2019, and US $ 567 thousand in 2020. Tobacco is the only product recognized in export from North Macedonia,” added the minister.
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