Malena Mard: EU supports reforms in Azerbaijan

Baku. 2 February. REPORT.AZ/ Head of the EU Delegation in Azerbaijan Malena Mard has received Caspian Energy’s delegation headed by President and Editor-in-Chief of Caspian Energy International Media Group Natalya Aliyeva, Report informs.

Different issues concerning cooperation within the framework of the Caspian Energy International Media Group and Caspian European Club (Caspian Business Club), opportunities of expansion of contacts on the level of the business-community were discussed at the meeting.

Malena Mard highly assessed the activity of the Caspian European Club (Caspian Business Club) and events arranged by the Club.

In the course of the meeting M.Mard emphasized that the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) is a priority for EU. “We hope to receive Azeri gas in 2020. Moreover, according to the available information, implementation of the TANAP project is ahead of the schedule”, she emphasized.

M.Mard noted a high potential of cooperation of the European companies with Azerbaijani ones. According to her, Azerbaijan has established very close and tight relations with the EU, which are developing year by year.

Apart from this, EU is a big investor in Azerbaijan, she emphasized.

Malena Mard stated that EU supports reforms implemented by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as well as the work in direction of diversification of the economy of the country and is following with interest the development in privatization. In this regard the European companies can play a big role, she noted. According to her, European companies operate here in order to demonstrate their experience that Azerbaijan could use in practice.

She also said that EU is cooperating with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan and makes its recommendations on concrete directions of tourism development. Apart from this, M.Mard noted that EU has a joint project with the State Committee for Statistics which also promotes economic reforms.

Ambassador highlighted a big potential of cooperation in agriculture and delivery of high quality products into the European market. Joint and tight work is carried out with the Ministry of Agriculture in this direction. “Azerbaijan has high-quality products, but the work on development of distributorship should be accelerated”, she noted.

At the end of the meeting Malena Mard gave an exclusive interview to Caspian Energy. In the course of the interview she spoke about possibilities of development of bilateral relations, expansion of the economic and investment cooperation, prospects of development of the energy market as well as touched the issues of development of the tourism sector and energy cooperation.