(MENAFN- AzerNews) An Azerbaijan-Lithuania business forum with participation of
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President
of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda has been held in
Vilnius, Azernews reports.
The heads of state made speeches at the business forum.
Address by President Gitanas Nausėda
- Your Excellency, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Dear ministers, members of business community, distinguished
guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm pleased to welcome so many Azerbaijani business people in
Vilnius who are joined by their Lithuanian counterparts. I hope
today's discussion will help our countries to deepen the existing
ties and to develop new partnerships.
This year, Lithuania and Vilnius is celebrating 700-year
anniversary. The early days of our capital city were marked by the
invitation letters of Lithuanian ruler Gediminas to the foreign
leaders, merchants and craftspeople of any social background and
religion. Ever since Lithuania has been on an ambitious journey to
interact with others, get new ideas and grow.
The great ancestors of the Azerbaijani people we are also part
of this story receiving Lithuanian envoys in as early as the 15th
century. Today, we can count on the healthy state of our bilateral
ties. Azerbaijan is an important partner of Lithuania and we are
interested in searching for mutually beneficial opportunities. We
see Azerbaijan as a growing economic power with a huge energy
potential and aspirations to diversify. Various sectors of
Azerbaijan's economy such as information technologies, logistics,
manufacturing, advanced food industries and renewable energy
attract Lithuanian entrepreneurs. This much we can bring to the
table.
In the past, Lithuania has proven its ability to quickly adapt
and to use new circumstances to advantage. We rely on a strong
tradition of industry and an intelligent workforce. Our digital
infrastructure is fast and affordable, one of the best in the whole
European Union.
During the global contraction in 2020, Lithuania also managed to
avoid the negative GDP change. This experience of successful
anti-cyclical economic policy was an important lesson that we will
use while dealing with new global turbulences. Right now, we are
readily looking at the plans of the European Union to support the
industrial production of green technologies. New opportunities will
be provided by a breakthrough in zero pollution manufacturing. It
will benefit Lithuania's economy. The development of the net zero
economies could also bring Lithuania's and Azerbaijan's economies
closer. Our confidence today is boosted by the magnificent energy
transition within the last decade. It allowed Lithuania to become
the first European country to completely stop imports of Russian
energy supplies including oil, electricity, and natural gas.
Currently, there is an approach to the economic models based on low
fixed price energy to be generated from renewable resources both
onshore and offshore. That will strongly increase the
competitiveness of our manufacturing and services sectors.
Azerbaijan's businesses are welcome to join in and reap the
benefits.
I'm happy to know that initial economic reunion took place last
year in Baku. There I had the honor to open a business forum with
His Excellency, the President of Azerbaijan. Today, I strongly
believe that our nations must be reconnected not only economically
but also in the fields of science, education and culture. The road
is wide and it lies in front of us. Let this business forum serve
as another step in the right direction. I would like to express
special gratitude for organizational activities of this business
forum to Lithuania's agency Litfood, Lithuania's Innovation Agency,
Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists, Export and Investment
Promotion Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan (AZPROMO) and all
other institutions involved. I wish you all exciting and fruitful
discussions. Thank you.
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Address by President Ilham Aliyev
- Dear President Nausėda.
Dear ladies and gentlemen.
First of all, I would like once again to express the gratitude
to Mr. President for hospitality.
I'm very glad to be back to the beautiful country and have an
opportunity to have a broad exchange of views with Mr. President on
our bilateral issues, regional issues, as well as economic agenda.
And the fact that the heads of state for the second time within one
year address a business forum demonstrates big importance we attach
to business-to-business contacts between our countries and our
business circles.
With president Nausėda, I think, we laid down a very solid
foundation for our cooperation and established a very active
political dialogue. As I said, we met last May in Baku, then this
January in Davos and now in Vilnius. So, it really demonstrates the
dynamism of our cooperation. So, now it's time for business
communities to engage in a long journey of mutually beneficial
fruitful cooperation.
Two weeks ago here in Vilnius, intergovernmental commission of
Lithuania and Azerbaijan met in order to address important issues
of our economic agenda. And I think that the role of Joint Economic
Commission is to coordinate the efforts of business circles in
order to address the importance of potential cooperation and also
to provide a framework for partnership.
In this respect, exchange of information about our plans is very
important. I'm sure that during the today's business forum,
there'll be a lot of discussions about what kind of projects are
planned to be implemented in our countries and how business
community of both countries can participate. Today we broadly
discussed with Mr. President the potential areas of cooperation,
and President already mentioned them. I think that the potential is
really here because we are moving in the same direction with
respect to investments in renewables. Both countries have enormous
wind potential in the Baltic and Caspian Sea. And both countries
have this on our agenda. In our case, though we are on the safe
side with respect to energy security, but still, we want to save
more natural gas for export and to use our nature - wind and sun -
in order to produce electricity, especially taking into account
that last July the European Commission and Azerbaijan signed a
Memorandum of Understanding on strategic partnership in the field
of energy. Based on this memorandum, we are supposed to double our
natural gas supply to Europe until 2027. In 2021, our natural gas
supply to Europe was 8 bcm, this year it will be 12 bcm and by 2027
it will reach 20 bcm. I think this is minimum because the potential
is here. We are producing more natural gas from existing fields.
Very soon we will announce important production from one of the big
fields of the Caspian. And also investments in renewables will
allow us to save natural gas for export.
Therefore, Azerbaijan, as a reliable supplier to Europe, today
exports oil, natural gas, electricity. We plan to export hydrogen,
including green hydrogen. All that is part of overall strategic
framework of our cooperation with European Union and we are
grateful to our Lithuanian friends and partners for a constant
support of Azerbaijan's efforts and European Commission's efforts
to become closer.
Another important area and, I think, business community should
take it into account is a great potential in the area of logistics,
connectivity and transportation. We look at transportation sector
not only as a source of revenues from transit but opportunity for
small and medium-sized enterprises to establish manufacturing,
business, services on route.
Today, Lithuania and Azerbaijan are important transportation
hubs in our region. So we need to create connectivity between the
regions of Caspian and Baltic Sea and this is possible. Because if
we look at the energy map of Europe it has been changed
dramatically mainly due to the initiatives of Azerbaijan. Oil
pipelines, gas pipeline create a completely new situation. The same
with the transportation. We built new connections together with our
neighbors and partners. We're investing largely into the sea port
infrastructure of Baku. We are investing in building more vessels,
which will be able to transport more cargos across the Caspian.
Therefore, for business communities, I think, it's the right time
to evaluate this opportunity and not to be late because,
definitely, these enormous transportation opportunities, especially
in the current geopolitical situation, will create added-value.
Also, I'd like to inform our Lithuanian friends that
Azerbaijan's economy is stable, investments are friendly and is
based on natural resources, but at the same time now, the main
target is diversification. And I think that we will be able to
largely diversify our economy and to reduce dependence on energy
sectors. Though, energy sector will continue to play an important
role for our energy security and energy security of Europe.
Our economic performance is reflected in certain statistics. In
order to attract the Lithuanian companies more to Azerbaijan I
would like to say that we have very low foreign debt, it's below
10% of our GDP. We have a stable national currency and I'm sure,
will continue to be stable because we have a surplus of our
international trade turnover, substantial surplus. And hard
currency reserves, which we accumulated in our state oil fund and
central bank reserves is 10 times more than our foreign debt. So,
stability of our economy is an important factor for regional
economic cooperation and for investment climate because good
investment climate is created not only by having good legislation.
It is not enough. It is important to have good business
opportunities, to have very dynamic local market and accessibility
to the neighboring market. Therefore, Azerbaijani market is
growing, population is growing. Accessibility to big markets of
Central Asia is provided. And also establishing strong connectivity
with region of where your country is situated, will definitely
create additional opportunities.
So I'm sure that this meeting will produce good results. As it
was said today, several documents were signed. Hopefully, all of
them will end in good results, which will demonstrate the
efficiency of these kinds of gatherings. And also using this
opportunity I would like to invite our friends from Lithuanian
business community to come to Azerbaijan and continue our
dialogue.
Thank you very much.
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Addressing the business forum, Minister of Economy and
Innovation of Lithuania Aušrinė Armonaitė said that Azerbaijan is
an important partner of Lithuania in the South Caucasus region. The
minister underlined that Lithuania is interested in the further
development of relations between the two countries. Noting that the
mutual trade turnover between the two countries is multifaceted,
Aušrinė Armonaitė emphasized that Lithuania is interested in
stimulating mutual foreign direct investments. Underlining that
there are ample opportunities for the expansion of collaborative
projects between the two countries, the Lithuanian minister said
that they are interested in sharing the best experience, expert
knowledge and success stories with Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan's Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov noted the
existence of a mechanism for protecting investments and avoiding
double taxation between the two countries, adding that this
promotes the activity of investors. Speaking about the
diversification of Azerbaijan's economy, Mikayil Jabbarov said that
non-oil and gas exports of the country had doubled in the past four
years. Touching upon the alternative energy sources, the minister
emphasized that the transition to these energy sources had a
significant positive effect on Azerbaijan's economy.
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The business forum brought together about 80 companies from both
countries operating in various sectors of economy.
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