Azerbaijan is keen to attract more investment from Slovenian businesses and increase trade turnover, as Baku seeks to diversify its range of trading partners.
Trade between the two countries is currently at a relatively modest level, but there are numerous opportunities for cooperation, Rufat Mammadov, head of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO), told the Azerbaijan-Slovenia Business Forum on October 21.
Slovenian companies have already invested into the Azerbaijani economy, and there is potential for growth in areas such as agriculture, food industry, information technology, telecommunications and tourism, Mammadov added.
Slovenia is not yet one of Azerbaijan’s major trading partners. Trade turnover between the two countries stood at just $8.47m during the first eight months of 2013, with the lion’s share being
Slovenian exports to Azerbaijan. However, during this period trade turnover more than doubled compared with the first eight months of 2012. Boštjan Skalar, acting director of the Slovenian Public Agency of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Development, Investment, and Tourism (SPIRIT), agreed that the two countries have “great potential” to expand bilateral economic cooperation.
The forum was the fifth organised by AZPROMO as it seeks to raise trade and investment ties with Slovenia. Delegates included representatives of more than 50 Slovenian companies and organisations across sectors from finance to energy, ICT, construction and defense.
Following an agreement between AZPROMO and SPIRIT at the previous forum, which took place in Baku in January 2013, the Azerbaijan-Slovenia Business Alliance, comprising 37 Slovenian and 15 Azerbaijani companies, was launched in July.
For further information about co-operation between Azerbaijan and Slovenia, please contact our office in Azerbaijan.