Azernews.Az

By Trend

Trade between the European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan has grown by 55 percent between 2016 and 2019, said President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Trend reports.

She made the remark during a press briefing following the videoconference of EU and EaP leaders.

She pointed out that it is in European Union’s strategic interest to have a prosperous Eastern neighborhood.

“This is why we are so heavily engaged in helping to build a resilient Eastern neighborhood. By resilience we also mean economic prosperity, stability and security. Today we discussed how to shape and focus our partnership beyond 2020. With the leaders, we have indeed on five priorities for partnership in the coming years. First of all, we want a partnership focused on the economy that creates; it creates decent jobs, better physical connections between our countries and better opportunities particularly for young people. Indeed the numbers are impressive. If you look at the increase of trade volumes between 2016 and 2019, the bilateral trade volumes between the EU and all our six Eastern Partnership partners has increased substantially. For example, by as much as 55 percent with Azerbaijan and 50 percent with Ukraine. We see also that the intra-regional trade has more than doubled,” said Ursula von der Leyen.

She noted that the second important point is a partnership that empowers.

“Good governance, democratic institutions, human rights, gender equality, the rule of all - these are demanded by all citizens and these are important values for EU. Our third priority area is the partnership that connects. We must embrace digital transformation. The EU will work with Eastern neighbors to modernize technologies, to provide high quality infrastructure services to people across the region,” said the European Commission’s president.

She noted that the fourth topic that is important for is a partnership which is sustainable.

Ursula von der Leyen said the Commission will continue to deliver tangible results that citizens can really benefit from.