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Domestic

President Ilham Aliyev proposes to announce 2011 a â€œYear of Tourismâ€

15 January 2011 01:03 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. On January 14, the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan held a large meeting presided over by President Ilham Aliyev and dedicated to the socio-economic outcomes of 2010, APA reports. President of Azerbaijan delivered a final speech at the meeting.

President Aliyev proposed to announce 2011 a â€œYear of Tourismâ€: "2011 just started, we announced 2010 a â€œYear of Ecologyâ€. As I said, we achieved good results. I suggest announcing 2011 a "Year of Tourism". In 2011, 5 five-star hotels will be opened in Baku, I think, this is probably a unique event occurring in the world. However, construction of four-and-three-star hotels is in progress in Baku. Great works related to hotel business are carried out in the regions, and development of tourism in Azerbaijan is a reality.

â€œShahdagâ€ winter-summer ski resort as well as ski infrastructure is underway of establishment. This is the project created absolutely by the state.

There will be ski base, ski lifts, first-aid posts, restaurants, entertainment places. In a word, â€œShahdagâ€ resort center will become a world-class one. It canâ€™t lag behind of the most advanced and popular resort places of the world, and it wonâ€™t. Thus, itâ€™ll bring new investments to our country, will create additional conditions for people living in the northern regions, and it will also cause for opening thousands, may be tens of thousands of new jobs. A number of tourists coming to Azerbaijan will increase, thereby Azerbaijan will become more and more attractive country for tourism.

We have very wonderful nature, the Caspian Sea, beautiful mountains, rivers, and forests are our great treasures. We have to make efforts to giving impetus for development of tourism in 2011. I think, announcement of 2011 a â€œYear of Tourismâ€ is fair.