Last week the fourth meeting of the Azerbaijani-Turkish Inter-Governmental Commission for Economic Co-operation took place in Istanbul on 11 April. A protocol was adopted as a result of the meeting.
"Signing the document prevents various barriers in the way of development of the bilateral co-operation," Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Turkey, Zakir Hashimov, said as a result of the meeting.
The meeting focused on the economic, energy co-operation, as well as co-operation with regards to transport, information and communications.
The Turkish side took into consideration the proposals of Baku on increasing period of stay of the Azerbaijani transport means in the territory of Turkey without additional tax payments from 30 days to 60 days. According to Hashimov, Turkey promised to consider this suggestion. Special commission was established to resolve transport issues.
In addition, the Commission focused on the energy exchange. The meeting highlighted the importance of realizing such projects as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars for the development of the relations.
From the Azerbaijani side, the Commission is headed by Vice Prime Minister Abid Sharifov.
Currently active co-operation between Azerbaijan and Turkey is being realized not only in the energy sphere, but also in non-oil sphere. As a result, today the specific weight of the Turkish investments in the non-oil sector is at high level and exceeds $2.2bln.
The Turkish people in Azerbaijan are mainly engaged in the sphere of service and trade. However, it needs to attract them in other spheres which are priority for Azerbaijan - tourism, hotel business, furniture production, small and medium enterprises.
In addition, good legal bases have been created with Turkey and it creates favorable conditions for investing in Azerbaijan. Turkey and Azerbaijan have signed protocol of co-operation, double taxation agreement removal, agreement on mutual protection of investments. The investments put by Turkish oil company TPAO into non-oil sector of Azerbaijan totals $2.2bln, but there are plans to increase them up to $4.5bln.
According to the data provided by the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover between the two countries made up $1680.8mln. Particularly, the largest amount of the Azerbaijani export in 2007 fell on Turkey. During the year, commodities totaling $1056.3mln, which makes up 17.44% of the gross amount of export.