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Azerbaijan Investment Summit underway in London

08 December 2009 15:46 (UTC +04:00)

London. Vugar Mustafayev - APA-ECONOMICS. Adam Smith Conferences with support from Azerbaijanâ€™s embassy in the UK has kicked the 1st International Azerbaijan Investment Summit in London from December 8th -9th 2009

As moderator of the first session, SOCAR Vice-President Elshad Nasirov said that the event would contribute to further development of relations between Azerbaijan and the Unitd Kingdom.

"Relations between our countries have deep historical roots. British investors are well familiar with the oil sector of Azerbaijan.

He also spoke about his countryâ€™s economy, including the history of oil and gas sector.

According to him, Azerbaijan was the first in the world to start oil production at sea and in land and build the first tanker. For 161 years, Azerbaijan has been working on the development of this sector.

"Despite such a long history of production, Azerbaijan’s economy based on oil and gas sector is still performing at significant growth rates,â€ he added.

Azerbaijani ambassador to the UK Fakhraddin Gurbanov also expressed confidence that the two-day conference would give impetus to the expansion of bilateral ties.

"The United Kingdom is one of the main foreign investors in Azerbaijan. These investments go not only to oil and gas sector, but also to finance, consulting, ICT, education and so on," he added.

He said that a 100-day event dedicated to Azerbaijani culture was held in the UK this year.

Recalling President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to London this summer, the ambassador noted that such visits give a boost to the development of bilateral relations.

Mentioning that Azerbaijan regained its independence 18 years ago, he emphasized that it is very difficult for a young state to keep up economic growth rates in difficult economic times.

"However, Azerbaijan’s economy has expanded at about 5 times over the past 5 years. At present, Azerbaijan leads the region in foreign direct investment per capita. Besides, transparency in the economy, particularly in the extractive industries is fully provided,â€ he added.

Deputy Minister of Economic Development Sevinj Hasanova talked about the state policy to improve the business environment, ensure transparency and open competition, and improve the legislative framework.

She added that the country has recently adopted law on special economic zones.

â€œOver the years, Azerbaijan signed agreements on mutual protection of investments with 39 countries and on the avoidance of double taxation with 38 countries. $52 billion has been invested in Azerbaijan and $11 billion of this was made in 2008. Azerbaijan has created the most simplified system of business registration and the registration procedure takes three days. Our economy has completely restored from 1998 financial crisis in 2005. Over the past five years the national economy grew by 5 times and today Azerbaijan is the world leader in GDP growth rate. Over the last 5 years, poverty rate fell by more than 3 times to 13% ", she added.

She added that Azerbaijan is one of the few countries less affected by the financial crisis.

She said the countryâ€™s strategic currency reserves have already reached $19 billion while total liabilities amount to only $3.3 billion.

Vice-President of Azerbaijanâ€™s Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mehman Abbasov, AzPromo President Adil Mammadov and officials from other state institutions and agencies also delivered speeches about the development and prospects of the national economy.