Minister: Azerbaijani exporters consider Russian market to be more profitable

The Azerbaijan's agricultural products are mostly exported to the Russian market due to historical traditions as well as an objective reason, Azerbaijani Minister of Agriculture Majnun Mammadov said in an exclusive interview with Report.

“Discussions with representatives of the private sector in particular show that, unlike economic policy experts or independent experts, existing exporters consider the Russian market to be a more profitable market both in terms of price and logistics.,” the minister said.

“In other words, entrepreneurs who export products worth millions of dollars every year, the players in the export process, have not yet put forward any serious initiatives to enter the export market beyond Russia (except for episodic cases). Entrepreneurs have recently started to have certain experience in exporting products to the Middle East, Asian and European markets. The main issue is to encourage the further expansion of the scale of these practices, in other words, the diversification of export markets,” Mammadov said.

“Access to more markets, and wider integration into the global market, that is, the process of diversification of export markets, which is quite important for us, requires a completely different approach to the policy of strict protection of the domestic market. This approach can be taken into account, especially in the newly created regional logistics infrastructure and the strategic alliance relations with Türkiye with the active initiative of Azerbaijan. The expansion of our agricultural and food products trade with Türkiye will ensure our more active participation in the European and Middle Eastern markets in the future,” the minister of agriculture added.

You can read the full interview here.