Azerbaijan's trade turnover with Italy reaches $2.6bn

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan is Italy’s main trade partner in the South Caucasus region as the two countries enjoyed a $2.6bn-trade turnover in the first half of 2020.

Italy topped the list of countries importing Azerbaijani goods with the value of exports to this country amounting to $2.4 billion in 2020, local media reported with the reference to the State Customs Committee on July 27.

Turkey and Russia were next in the list of countries importing Azerbaijani goods in the first half of 2020.

Thus, the trade turnover with Turkey was $2.2 billion and with Russia $1.2 billion in the reporting period.

Russia accounts to the largest amount of goods imported from Azerbaijan among CIS countries in the first six months of 2020 with the value of imports from Azerbaijan amounting to $380.5 million.

Additionally, during the reporting period, Turkey, Iran and Turkmenistan were the largest importers of Azerbaijani products from among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries. Among Spanish-speaking countries, the largest amount of goods were exported to Spain worth $129 million.

It should be noted that the volume of Azerbaijan’s trade operations amounted to $12.6 billion in the first half of 2020.

Earlier it was reported that between January-April 2020, Italy's share in Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover was 26.36 percent (1st place), including 38.15 percent in exports (1st place) and 4.39 percent in imports (6th place).

Italy is one of Azerbaijan’s main trade partner and some 113 Italian companies, operating in various fields, are registered in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is one of Italy’s three main energy resources suppliers and the implementation of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline project will raise cooperation between two countries.

Last year, Azerbaijan was the largest supplier of crude oil to Italy. Azerbaijan accounts for 17 percent of crude oil consumption in Italy.  Thus, mutual trade turnover amounted to $7 billion in 2019.

Italy has so far invested $770 million in Azerbaijan’s economy, while Azerbaijan has invested $1.7 billion in the Italian economy.

On February 20, 2020, during the official visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Italy, a various documents were signed, that would raise the bilateral relations between two countries. One of the documents that should be mention was “Joint Declaration on Strengthening Multidimensional Strategic Partnership”.