Azernews.Az

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan and Russia enjoy great potential for developing relations in the fields of pharmaceutics and industry, in which cooperation will be advantageous for both.

Russia’s trade representative in Azerbaijan Eldar Tlyabichev stressed that the cooperation in the field of pharmaceutics is on rise, but the sector offers opportunities for further growth.

"We have repeatedly noted the expansion of our trade turnover, the development of agrarian relations between our countries, but there are other sectors, one of which is pharmaceutics," he told Trend.

Currently, a joint plant Hayat Pharm for medicine production is being built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, where two more pharmaceutical plants are being constructed.

The foundation of the Hayat Farm was laid in November 2016. The plant is a joint venture with a group of companies R-Pharm (Russian Federation), Vita-A LLC (Azerbaijan) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC).

The total preliminary investment in the project exceeds $70 million. The plant's capacity will be 22.5 million packs, or 500 million tablets and capsules. The plant should be producing finished products by late 2019.

Tlyabichev further mentioned that the industrial sector, transport and ICT are among the promising areas.

Azerbaijan has large industrial capacities, therefore, there is much to work on, he said adding that there are also great prospects in the field of transport, and with the implementation of the North–South Transport Corridor, these prospects will increase even more.

The International North–South Transport Corridor is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and roadroute for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia.

The corridor is planned to transport 6 million tons of cargo per year at the initial stage and more than 10 million tons of cargo in the future.

Touching upon ICT, the trade representative stressed that today Russia has great achievements in the field of accessibility of Internet services and Azerbaijan can benefit from Russia’s experience.

Tlyabichev also positively assessed appointment of the trade representative of Azerbaijan to Russia, stressing that this step will expand cooperation between the two countries.

Ruslan Aliyev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ateshgah Insurance Group, was appointed the first trade representative of Azerbaijan to Russia.

Trade representative’s main mission is to take measures to expand Azerbaijan`s economic and trade relations with Russia, protect economic interests of Azerbaijan, increase export of Azerbaijani goods and services, promote Azerbaijan’s business environment and investment opportunities.

Azerbaijan seeks to open its second Trade House in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region as well, meanwhile the first one was opened in the Belarusian capital Minsk, on May 26.

Besides, Azerbaijani business center will be built in the Astrakhan region soon. The Center will promote Azerbaijani products in the Russian market. The interested Russian companies will have opportunity of concluding long-term contracts with specific suppliers from Azerbaijan. Thus, the construction of the center will contribute to the effective development of trade and economic relations between business entities of both countries.

A national shopping center of Azerbaijan, Baku Plaza, is planned to opened in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Baku Plaza will provide a number of services. Ateliers, repairs and tailoring, dry cleaning, beauty salon and grocery stores will operate at the Center.

Azerbaijan is one of the main economic partners of Russia among the CIS countries. The trade turnover between two countries amounted to almost $2 billion in 2016. Interregional cooperation plays an important role in the development of Russian-Azerbaijani trade and economic relations and the increase in trade turnover.

At present, enterprises of 71 regions of the Russian Federation cooperate directly with Azerbaijan. Fifteen regions of Russia have relevant agreements with Azerbaijan on trade and economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation.

The trade turnover with Russia amounted to $951.32 million in January-June 2017, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz