Azerbaijan, Baku / corr. Trend I.Khalilova / The Minister of Economic Development of Azerbaijan, Heydar Babayev, stated on 3 May in Baku at the meeting with the Governmental delegation of Belarus that the Government of Azerbaijan decided to construct large refrigerated warehouses around Baku to hold foodstuffs. According to him, this would be a State enterprise, but the warehouses will be offered commercial organizations and possibly to foreign companies.
Babayev offered to consider the possibility for Belarusian enterprises to participate in the project. "Presently there are big problems with preserving foodstuffs in Azerbaijan. Therefore, the Government believes it to be important to construct warehouses," the Minister said.
In addition, at present the Ministry of Economic Development is preparing a list of necessary foodstuffs for warehousing to ensure food security. "There are qualitative meat and dairy products in the Azerbaijan market, but there are no domestic agricultural products," he said.
The Trade Minister of Belarus, Alexander Ivankov, offered to investigate the niche in the market for sugar products in Azerbaijan. "We know that after the Imishli Sugar Factory is put into operation, Azerbaijan will ensure its sugar demand, but a small niche will remain and we can offer Belarusian sugar to you. In addition, we can increase the delivery of children dairy products or produce juices from Azerbaijani concentrates," Ivankov said.
Babayev also supports the idea to produce juices from Azerbaijani concentrates in Belarus.