Vietnam offers Azerbaijan certain proposals for cooperation in energy, transportation, agriculture and commerce, the Azerbaijani ambassador to Vietnam Anar Imanov reported.
“All these proposals will be considered during the first meeting of the Azerbaijan-Vietnam Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Trade, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, planned to be held in the near future”, he said.
Currently, a specific date for the meeting is being agreed by the sides.
Minister of Energy Natig Aliyev is the co-chair of the commission from the Azerbaijani side, and Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh is the co-chair of the commission from the Vietnamese side. Various agencies are represented in the committee at the level of deputy ministers.
The Azerbaijani diplomat said that the format of intergovernmental commissions was an exception to rules for Vietnam.
“As a rule, intergovernmental commissions on trade and economic cooperation of Vietnam with different countries are headed by the country’s deputy minister of industry and trade, and different agencies are represented in these commissions only at the level of directors or deputy directors of departments”, Anar Imanov said.
“A higher level of representation for the commission with Azerbaijan shows the importance the Vietnamese side attaches to the cooperation with Azerbaijan”, he added.
The Azerbaijani diplomat expressed confidence that significant positive developments in the trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation between the two countries will take place with the start of work of the intergovernmental commission.
“We have a huge, but unfortunately still not sufficiently implemented potential of bilateral economic cooperation”, the diplomat said. “The intergovernmental commission will be an excellent platform to discuss ways to promote bilateral cooperation between our countries”.
The Azerbaijani ambassador said that the commission’s agenda envisaged discussion of the entire spectrum of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Vietnam, including the spheres of energy, transport, trade, agriculture, culture, sports and tourism.
Speaking about trade and economic relations between Azerbaijan and Vietnam, the diplomat noted that in the first half of 2016, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $51.9 million, of which $47.4 million accounted for the Azerbaijani side, and $4.5 million for Vietnam.
“As for the goal of reaching $1 billion volume of turnover in bilateral trade set by the presidents of both countries during the visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Vietnam in 2014, surely the global decline in oil prices affected the trade turnover between our countries, but in spite of this there is great potential for economic cooperation”, Imanov said.
“There is no doubt that the two countries do everything necessary to increase the turnover and develop the bilateral trade and economic cooperation in general”, he added. “The first meeting of the intergovernmental commission once again confirms all the abovementioned. In my opinion, even $1 billion volume of trade turnover is not the limit”. (Trend/Business World Magazine)