Azerbaijan keen to resolve Pak energy crisis

Being a brother in Islam, Azerbaijan strongly desire to further enhance its bilateral, economic and commercial ties with Pakistan.

These remarks were made by Dashgin Shikarov, Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Pakistan during a meeting with Mr.Zafar Bakhtawari, President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI). He said that Azerbaijan has expertise in energy sector, having huge hydel power plants as well as expertise in exploration of oil and gas sector, therefore, both the countries could cooperate in these areas to further enhance their bilateral relations.

The Ambassador said that Azerbaijan would increase its airline fleets by 2014 as Azerbaijan is keen to establish direct air-link between Islamabad and Baku which would bring people of the two countries closer to each other. He also underlined the need of establishing Pak-Azerbaijan Business Forum as well as invited ICCI’s delegation to visit Azerbaijan that would open new avenues of cooperation.

Mr.Dashgin said that construction sector is one of the fastest growing areas of the Azerbaijan’s economy as it is in process of construction huge buildings and a new island having worth of $130billion. He said that the two countries also have a potential of joint ventures in pharmaceutical, agriculture and manufacturing sector.

In his welcome address, Mr.Zafar Bakhtawari, President ICCI said that it was a long standing demand of the Islamabad Chamber for establishing direct air-link between Pakistan and Azerbaijan as we have requested Turkish airline to consider connecting Istanbul-Baku-Islamabad through atleast two of its flights in a week which would help businessmen in visiting each other country and exploring new areas of commercial linkages.  

He said that both the sides must ensure liberal visa policy to enable the businessmen get visa easily and meet each other which is imperative to boost trade ties between the two countries as there is enough potential in various fields between the two countries to increase trade. 

Mr.Bakhtawari said that Pakistan always support Azerbaijan on the issues of Nagorno-Karabakh and appreciated  the support of the government of the Azerbaijan, saying that cooperation in energy sector would bring people of the two countries closer to each other.

The ICCI President informed the Ambassador that ICCI have planned to host a meeting of ECO Capital Chambers Conference in Islamabad with the aim to promote mutually beneficial relation between Pakistan and ECO countries.