Bulgaria eyes entering Central Asian markets via Azerbaijan

By Azernews

By Nigar Abbasova

Bulgaria seeks to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan in all spheres and considers the country as a transit route to Central Asia.

"Azerbaijan has great potential in the transport sector, which presents broad opportunities for Bulgaria to enter the Central Asian markets," Azerbaijani Ambassador to Bulgaria Nargiz Gurbanova said.

Gurbanova further told Trend that entering the Bulgarian market and further to the European markets is meanwhile interesting for Azerbaijan, mentioning that developed transport infrastructure is required to fulfill these intentions.

Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR has recently voiced its interest in entering the Bulgarian oil products’ market. The company is holding talks on the possibilities of benefiting from Bulgaria’s gas and oil products’ markets.

Bulgaria has an intention of becoming main gas transit country for South Eastern and Central Europe.

The talks on delivering Azerbaijani gas via the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) are currently underway. IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor.

The project will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, mostly from the second stage of development of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas and condensate field. The IGB will connect to the Trans-Adriatic pipeline, providing a steady flow of natural gas from Shah Deniz in the Caspian to European markets. Bulgarian government plans to buy 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of increasing the volume in the future.

The cooperation opportunities between the two countries will be discussed during the talks between the two governments within the framework of the next meeting of the Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation in Baku in late September, the envoy said.

The top issues to be discussed during the meeting include exchange of opinions on strengthening of cooperation between the two countries, implementation of joint projects, expansion of commercial-economic ties and consideration of perspectives for cooperation in the spheres of energy, transport, culture and other priority areas.  

The Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation was established in 1995.

The trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $16.5 million in January-July 2016 compared to $6.6 million in the same period of 2015, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Such a growth has been achieved through an increase in import operations by 2.5 times.

The diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in June, 1992. The embassy of Bulgaria in Azerbaijan was opened in December 1999.