President Aliyev: Relations with Japan developing very successfully [UPDATE]

By Azernews

By Akbar Mammadov

President Ilham Aliyev has said that the relations between Azerbaijan and Japan are developing very successfully. 

President Aliyev made the remarks on September 2, while accepting the credentials of newly-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Azerbaijan Junichi Wada.

“Our cooperation has a very broad agenda. First of all, our political dialogue is very active," Aliyev said.

"We are observing very good results in the economic sphere. We are very glad that Japanese companies are interested in establishing business in Azerbaijan. They are good investors. They have invested heavily in Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector. I hope that there will be interest in other sectors of our economy,” he went on saying.

Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan continues to be attractive foreign companies, especially given the improvement of the business environment.

Aliyev also thanked Japan for its financial support of various projects in Azerbaijan.

“With the financial support of Japanese banks and financial institutions, we have implemented two important projects of our energy infrastructure – two power plants, test stations “Shimal-1” and “Shimal-2”. Their total capacity is about 800 megawatts. Of course, this is a great contribution to our energy security,” Aliyev said.

The president stressed that this is a great contribution to Azerbaijan’s energy security.

“We are very pleased that Japanese companies are working here, and we also want to thank you for your voluntary support of various social projects. These projects are related to education, infrastructure and water supply in various villages. We appreciate this friendly gesture, so I want to thank your government once again. I do hope that we will further strengthen this close cooperation in the coming years."

It should be noted that President Aliyev also accepted the credentials of newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Greece to Azerbaijan Nikolaos Piperigkos on the same day.

Aliyev said that the contacts between Azerbaijan and Greece stopped after the previous Greek government came to power, and this was an initiative of the Greek government. “There are almost no active contacts at present. There is no exchange of delegations.”

“In order to have a clear idea of where we are, what we want and how we can move forward, it would be good if we know each other's positions,” the president said.