Ilham Aliyev: “Our main objective is to continue diversification of our economy”

“I am glad to have this opportunity to talk to you about our future plans. Of course, due to the pandemic we have to use this opportunity of video conference. First of all, I would like to express gratitude for this attention which the bank paid to Azerbaijan. I think we have established a very strong partnership relationship during the last almost 30 years. The bank supported us in transformation of the country and diversification of our economy. The fact that we have more than 3 billion euros in project financing is a clear demonstration of that. Also, it is very important that now half of this portfolio is the funds which were channeled to the private sector. This is also very good indicator of our cooperation,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said as he received the new president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Odile Renaud-Basso and other representatives of the bank's senior management, Report informs, citing AzerTag.

“As far as the infrastructure projects which have been implemented by our state companies almost all of them have already been completed. I was informed that we had 13 projects, 12 of them have been successfully completed and the last one is in the process of completion. I am also very grateful for support from EBRD to our energy projects, particularly Southern Gas Corridor, and its last portion - TAP, which EBRD financed at amount of 1 billion euros. As you know last day of last year, we celebrated the inauguration of TAP and the Southern Gas Corridor. So, that was really a historical achievement which changed completely the energy map of Eurasia. Now, as you know our main objective is to continue diversification of our economy. The results, I think, are very promising, especially this year and last year, despite pandemic, despite some contraction of our GDP we have growth in non-energy related industry production. These two months we have growth of more than 12 percent. So, this is a good indicator of diversification of our industry. We managed to channel the funds which we accumulated from oil sales to support private sector, to support our industrial potential and the 12 percent growth in non-energy industry really is a remarkable event,” Ilham Aliyev said.