Last update: March 27, 2024 15:21

Newsroom logo

Putin’s Trip To Azerbaijan Highlights Upward Trending Economic Ties

By Ilham Karimli September 29, 2018

None

President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev attended the 9th Azerbaijan-Russia Interregional Forum in Baku, September 27, 2018 / President.Az

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visited Baku to attend the ninth Azerbaijan-Russia Interregional Forum on Thursday, which President Ilham Aliyev called Azerbaijan’s “number one partner on imports and number one partner on exports of non-oil products.”

“We are also implementing projects related to mutual investments, and we see positive dynamics there too,” President Aliyev said, according to a transcript posted to the president’s official website.

“As for trade and economic relations, we see dynamic growth, and it is very impressive. There is a progressive trend: the turnover increased both last year and this year.”

The interregional forum was designed to build ties on the national and provincial levels between the two countries. Roughly 70 regions within the Russian Federation have ties to regions within Azerbaijan, to promote commerce and cultural linkages.

Trade between Azerbaijan and Russia in the first half of 2018 accounted for over $1.1 billion, which is 19.5 percent more than it was during the same period in 2017, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is a net importer of Russian goods, as exports of Azerbaijani products accounted for $350 million of the total figure – about 1.5 times more than the value of what Azerbaijan sent to Russia during the same period last year. Azerbaijan’s trade with Russia was 8.54 percent of the country’s total global trade during the same period.

Azerbaijan has sizeable investments in the Russian economy, amount to over $1 billion in value. Russians have poured about four times that amount into the economy of Azerbaijan. 

“Gazprombank has relatively recently financed a large industrial project worth more than $400 million in Azerbaijan. So these are all important elements of our cooperation,” President Aliyev said, referring to Gazprombank’s allocation of $489 million in loans to help finance the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic’s (SOCAR) polymer project.

Aleksey Chichkanov, the First Vice President of Russia’s third largest commercial bank, Gazprombank, reported at the forum that the bank is considered allocating up to $700 million for supplying Russian equipment to SOCAR’s Gas Processing and Polymer Centre, a project worth at $4 billion.

Thursday’s trip was Putin’s fourth visit to Azerbaijan in the last five years. Following his stop in Azerbaijan Putin traveled to Tajikistan to attend a session of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States, held on Friday.