European Union to Finance Institutional Development of Azerbaijan

Baku hosted a conference of the EU-funded project "Support to the activities in the field of institution-building in Azerbaijan> (SIBA).

According to the EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Malena Mard, they are interested in the improvement of local governance in Azerbaijan at escalating globalization. The High Representative believes the government is interested in the implementation of twinning-projects in the state structures, which is an indicator of the implementation of legal and administrative reform along with economic reforms aimed at ensuring the diversification of this segment.

According to official figures, Azerbaijan is the leader in the number of EU twinning projects and EU is the main partner in the implementation of major energy projects. To this day, with the support of the EU 43 such projects have been initiated in Azerbaijan, 25 of which are completed, 9 are at the execution stage and 9 are at the design stage. In addition, within the framework of technical assistance projects and grants, the international institution has allocated 582 million Euros to Baku. Azerbaijan is also a leader in the region in the number of implemented twinning projects.

According to the Deputy Minister of Economy Sahil Babayev, the European Union - the main trading partner of Azerbaijan - on the mutual trade turnover in 2015 was at the level of $ 9.7 billion (47% of the total turnover of the country). By May 1, the figure was about $ 2 billion (41% of export-import operations). In addition, since 2006 the volume of investments from the EU to the local fixed assets amounted to 45.6% of all financial investments, and direct investments in the non-oil sector accounted for about 35%.

Azerbaijan has also invested in European Union countries. The lead on this indicator belongs to France, Great Britain and Switzerland.

The sides noted the desire to continue and expand their cooperation. --17D-