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Azerbaijan-based gold tapping consortium to join EITI

15 October 2009 15:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov - APA-Economics. Azerbaijan International Mining Company Limited., a subsidiary of Anglo Asian Mining PLC, will be involved into the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative this year.

Azerbaijan International Mining Company Limited. is engaged in the exploration and development of gold and copper projects in Azerbaijan and the operation of the Gedabek mine in Azerbaijan.

Shahmar Movsumov, executive director of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), said Azerbaijan, as the active EITI participant, will add gold production and sales data into its EITI report from September.

The involvement of the gold tapping company into the EITI will be complete by the end of this year, he added.

â€œOur goal is to ensure that revenues from extractive industries are transparent and people are aware of this process. All companies operating in Azerbaijan must serve this purpose to increase transparency,â€ he added.

The EITI increases transparency over payments by companies to governments and to government-linked entities, as well as transparency over revenues by those host country governments.

It was announced by Tony Blair, the then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.

As of June 2009, EITI was implemented in 30 resource rich countries around the world. 12 countries have produced EITI reports.