Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan ink trade co-op memorandum

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan’s Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov and Kazakhstan’s Trade and Integration Minister Bakhyt Sultanov signed a memorandum on bilateral trade cooperation on September 9.

“This will help strengthen mutual trade on a mutually beneficial and fair basis. Among other things, we will work together to identify trade barriers and find solutions to eliminate them,” visiting Kazakh Trade and Integration Minister Sultanov wrote on his official Facebook page on September 9.

Moreover, the minister noted Kazakhstan’s readiness to increase soon the supply of metallurgical and petrochemical industries demanded by the Azerbaijani economy.

“Azerbaijan has an interest in our construction industry product, we, among other things, in their food and petrochemical industries,” the minister wrote.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the possibility of increasing bilateral trade.

Earlier, Kazakh Trade and Integration Minister Bakhyt Sultanov held a meeting with Azerbaijani Transport, Communications and High Technologies Minister Rashad Nabiyev to discuss transport and ICT cooperation between the two countries.

At the meeting, the parties underlined the importance of the unification of tariffs for transportation and synchronization of customs procedures in order to increase the volume of freight traffic along international transport corridors passing through both countries.

Kazakh minister invited Azerbaijani colleagues to participate in the implementation of industrial cooperation projects in the Kazakh border trade and logistics centers (Khorgos, Central Asia, Alatau, etc), as well as in the development of a new trade-logistical hub based on the existing seaport infrastructure in the Caspian Sea.

“We spoke about the modernization of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route infrastructure. Moreover, we discussed the interaction between the ports of Aktau, Kuryk and Alat (Baku port) and the processes of establishing a single operator for the implementation of the Trans-Caspian trade route,” he wrote.

Sultanov stressed that the task of the single operator will be the coordination of all transit countries along the Asia-Europe route and vice versa, as well as the creation of a single tariff for the entire corridor.

It should be noted that a Kazakh delegation led by Bakhyt Sultanov is visiting Azerbaijan and attended the 17th meeting of the Azerbaijani-Kazakh joint intergovernmental trade and economic cooperation commission held in Baku on September 9.