Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

Gold remains as one of the brighter spots in the commodities market today given the instability in the global oil market and slowing economic forecasts of the international financial institutions.

In view of the rising challenges, energy-rich Azerbaijan seeks to develop its export opportunities and bring to market new products, and here gold can be another real good for export.

Azerbaijan, in addition to the well-known oil and gas deposits, has rich deposits of other natural recourses, as gold. Geological expeditions have confirmed the Vejnali quartz-gold field in Zangilan and of the Gizilbulag gold-copper-pyrite deposits in Karabakh , which is under Armenian occupation. There are also reserves in Agyurd, Piyasbashi, Shakardara quartz-gold deposits in the Ordubad region, Agduzdag quartz-gold deposit in Dalidag, Gedebey copper-gold-pyrite and Gosha gold deposits in Gedabay.

Gold reserves have doubled in Azerbaijan due to deposits found in recent years. In the past ten years, 192 deposits of various profiles were discovered in 25 regions of the country.

The rise is observed not only in the number of deposits, but also in the production of this precious metal in the country.

The whole year production of Anglo Asian Mining, a company extracting precious metals in resource-rich Azerbaijan, was 60,285 ounces of gold, which is 16 percent more than in 2013, when 52,107 ounces were produced.

Azerbaijan is not one of the largest miners of precious metals, but the potential of these deposits is high. The development of gold mining and expansion of export capacity required certain reforms that were also noted by the authorities.

President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on February 11 on establishment of new state company AzerGold.

The company will engage in research, exploration, development and management of precious metals, introduction of new technologies in this field, modernization of material-technical base and their efficient use, as well as other works for the development in this sphere.

The economic and industrial bodies have been tasked to develop the strategy of AzerGold.

The establishment of new state company for mining precious metals was necessary. The separate structure will not only increase the gold production, but also optimize the entire process of production and manufacturing.

The establishment of AzerGold is expected to further intensify the state’s efforts in increasing the industrial development of the republic and its export capacity.

Now Azerbaijan seeks to efficiently distribute the production in the country to derive maximum benefit at low cost by creating new industrial districts, whose direction is different depending on the regions. For each region there will be determined "native" sphere, the development of which will give the best results with the existing infrastructure and other factors.

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