Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Organized by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and DEIK, the Türkiye - Azerbaijan Business Forum was held at TOBB Twin Towers in Ankara. The meeting hosted by TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu was attended by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Esedov, DEIK Vice President Erdal Eren, AZPROMO President Yusif Abdullayev, KOBİA Chairman Orxan Mammadov and business people.

In his speech at the Türkiye-Azerbaijan Business Forum, TOBB President M. Rıfat Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “With the liberation victory of Karabakh, a bleeding wound in the Caucasus has been closed and a great opportunity has arisen for lasting peace and tranquility in the region. Together with our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters, we are ready to do our part for the development of the region and for peace to take root in the region.”

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu emphasized that Azerbaijan’s economy is developing rapidly and offers attractive business and investment opportunities. Emphasizing that Baku has become one of the most beautiful capitals of the world as a result of the development concept and policies determined by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Azerbaijan has turned into the region’s trade and cultural center and tourism destination. As the Turkic world, we are proud of this striking progress of Azerbaijan. Now it is the turn of Karabakh. With the liberation victory of Karabakh, a bleeding wound in the Caucasus has been closed and a great opportunity has arisen for lasting peace and tranquility in the region. Together with our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters, we are ready to do our part for the development of the region and for peace to take root in the region.”

- “The Zengezur Corridor will contribute greatly to development of trade in our region”

Stating that Karabakh should become a center of attraction for agriculture, tourism, food, industry and informatics, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “I attach great importance to sharing the projects that will ensure the development of Karabakh with us business people. In this context, the Zengezur Corridor, which will connect Nakhchivan and Baku, will contribute greatly to the development of trade in our region. With the realization of this project, a new middle corridor will be opened from east to west that everyone can benefit from.”

- “Let’s provide international standard ‘arbitration’ to attract investors to our countries”

Pointing out that the Turkic world has an economic size of 1.5 trillion dollars, a foreign trade volume approaching 1 trillion dollars and a population of 185 million, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that they should increase economic integration to mobilize the existing potential power. Stating that increasing economic integration will be possible with more trade, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Our mutual trade volume has been increasing in recent years. It is moving towards the target of 15 billion dollars. However, we must act faster. We should expand the scope of our trade. There is a significant way to go yet in this regard. As you know, the Preferential Trade Agreement between our countries entered into force on March 1, 2021. At the first stage, we need to expand the scope of the agreement. Then we should aim for a free trade agreement. Our mutual investments are over 30 billion dollars. For this purpose, we established the Türkiye-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Öztürk Oran and Vugar Abbaso are the co-chairs of this chamber. Let’s provide an ‘arbitration’ at international standards to attract investors to our countries.”

- “We should set common standards in customs procedures”

Emphasizing that the other issue that needs to be improved between the two countries is customs procedures, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Although there are improvements in this regard, we should set common standards in customs procedures and make the processes simpler and faster. We should use a very important transit point such as the Caspian Sea more actively and less costly. On the other hand, we need to start the construction of the Trans-Caspian Natural Gas Pipeline as soon as possible.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu said that the two countries should also remove the transit quotas for each other, noting that more trade will be achieved with more entrepreneurs and a stronger private sector.

- Vice President Yılmaz

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said that Türkiye and Azerbaijan are two brotherly countries with a common history, culture, language and beliefs, and that Azerbaijan’s National Leader Heydar Aliyev set a direction for the relations between the two countries that will resonate for centuries by saying “One nation, two states”.

Yılmaz explained that with the implementation of the protocol, the scope of the TTA will expand and business people will be able to mutually access the Turkish and Azerbaijani markets under more favorable conditions, and continued as follows: “We need to expand preferential trade in the first place, but on the other hand, what we really need to do is to ensure a Free Trade Agreement in the medium and long term. Today, we have already reached a consensus on this issue, on the initiation of negotiations and talks towards this. Within the scope of the 11^th meeting of the Türkiye-Azerbaijan Joint Economic Commission, the platform we call KEK, we have adopted and mutually signed an action plan of 120 items today. I would like to point out that there are many items that respond to the expectations of our business people and that also contain opportunities for them. I would like to emphasize that many of the expectations of the business world, which have just been expressed by TOBB, DEIK and Azerbaijan, are also included in this action plan. We agree to improve customs and logistics procedures to facilitate trade between our countries. Only trade agreements or physical roads are not enough. It is also very important for our mutual trade and economic relations that we improve the gates and simplify the customs procedures. Following the completion of the necessary work for the establishment of the Simplified Customs Line, we plan to implement the Simplified Customs Line as soon as possible.”

Vice President Yılmaz wished that the Memorandum of Understanding signed today between TOBB and the Export and Investment Promotion Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan (AZPROMO) and the Cooperation Action Plan signed between the Foreign Economic Relations Board and the Trade Representative Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan would be beneficial.

- “The scope of the Preferential Trade Agreement should be expanded”

DEIK Vice President Erdal Eren said that as “One nation, two states,” Türkiye and Azerbaijan, economic relations are progressing strongly with the unity brought by friendship. Stating that the bilateral trade volume has reached approximately 4.5 billion dollars, Eren stated that new steps have been taken for the target of 15 billion dollars.

Noting that contracting companies have so far undertaken 527 projects worth 19.3 billion dollars in Azerbaijan, Eren said that contracting companies are ready to take part in projects that will contribute to the development of Azerbaijan in the coming period.

- “We are working to reach the mutual trade volume target of 15 billion dollars”

Yusif Abdullayev, President of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Agency (AZPROMO), said that they are doing their best to reach the target of $ 15 billion in mutual trade volume with Türkiye.

Abdullayev, who stated that the results of the investment forum they organized in December last year were very good, noted that Turkish companies want to invest in Azerbaijan and they are very happy about this.

Orxan Mammadov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Azerbaijan Small and Medium Business Development Agency (KOBİA), reminded that they signed a memorandum of understanding with KOSGEB in 2018.