Azerbaijan, Belarus to ink paper for use of Belarusian satellite

By AzerNews

Belarus and Azerbaijan have agreed to sign a cooperation agreement to use information received from the Belarusian spacecraft (BSC), BelTA news agency reported on Sunday referring to the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

The draft agreement has been prepared and submitted for consideration to the Azerbaijani side. All relevant legal procedures will be completed in May.

Azerbaijan is interested in obtaining images from the Belarusian satellite to solve urgent tasks related to environmental monitoring and cartography.

The BSC was successfully launched into the orbit in July 2012. The Belarusian spacecraft has high dynamic performance, as it can quickly change its locus to capture images at a desired angle. Special-purpose devices on the satellite are of Belarusian origin, and the rest of the equipment was made in Russia and England.

Earlier in April, an Azerbaijani delegation participated in the 20th International Specialized Exhibition and Congress on Telecommunications, Information and Banking Technologies, TIBO-2013, in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

The Azerbaijani delegation presented the latest ICT achievements of the country at the exhibition, which brought together more than 300 companies from 15 countries.

According to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies, a number of documents on cooperation between the two countries in the ICT sector were signed and prospects of further cooperation were discussed at TIBO-2013.

Also, Minsk hosted the second Belarusian-Azerbaijani business forum in the field of information and communication technologies on April 24. The Belarusian scientists' work drew interest of the Azerbaijani representatives.

The forum was aimed to strengthen and further develop ICT cooperation between state bodies of the two countries and to create opportunities and conditions for the demonstration of the ICT potential as well as export of products and services.

Azerbaijan and Belarus signed a memorandum on cooperation in the area of regulating the communication between the national operator of Belarus Beltelecom and Aztelekom Production Association during the forum. The memorandum will allow opening a direct channel for traffic exchange between Belarus and Azerbaijan. The national telecommunication operators will be able to reduce the cost of traffic from Belarus to Azerbaijan and vice versa.

Azerbaijani Communications and IT Minister Ali Abbasov said Belarus and Azerbaijan have some potential for providing information services, and in order to reduce the costs of traffic exchange, the national operators prefer to work directly, without intermediaries.

"Azerbaijan is located on the outskirts of Asia, while Belarus - in the middle of Europe, so this cooperation has broad prospects," Abbasov said.

In turn, Belarusian Communications and Informatization Minister Nikolai Pantelei said that the growth of traffic is the "logical development of the cooperation of the two countries" and will not lead to an increase of costs. As a result, telecommunication operators of the two countries will be able to reduce the cost of certain services for end-users.

During the forum, Beltelecom and the Center for International Relations and Calculations of the Azerbaijani ICT Ministry also signed an agreement of intent and a contract on the establishment of an inter-university center of distance education between the Belarusian Higher College of Communications and Azerbaijan Technical University.