OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2011. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during his official visit discussed strengthening of economic cooperation between the two countries. Minister for Economics Artis Kampars also participated in the discussion.  

The Prime Minister acknowledged that the economic cooperation between Latvia and Azerbaijan has shown positive dynamics during the recent years and expressed his satisfaction that the successful political cooperation, including high-level political visits has created the necessary pre-conditions for economic cooperation. The Prime Minister positively assessed the increase in both countries’ trade turnover which, despite the global economic crisis, has increased by 10%. During the discussion V.Dombrovskis mentioned that the Latvian businesses are interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan in certain investment projects. The potential investment projects were described to the Azerbaijan side and the President of Azerbaijan expressed his readiness to organize a visit of a business delegation to Latvia even before the meeting of the Latvia-Azerbaijan Intergovernmental Commission in Riga to be held in spring.  

Within the framework of the meeting the EU-Azerbaijan relations were discussed. The Prime Minister expressed Latvia’s support for the development of closer EU-Azerbaijan relations, incl. using the opportunities of the Eastern Partnership. The Prime Minister mentioned that in the light of Latvia’s recent reform experience, Latvia is ready to share its knowledge incl. the EU financed institutional strengthening projects for Azerbaijan.  

The Prime Minister pointed to Azerbaijan’s increasing role in future energy supplies to the European Union. The Prime Minister expressed his support to the EU aspirations to diversify the energy supplies. Both sides discussed the development of the energy projects – the Southern Corridor and the Nabucco project. President Aliyev expressed his satisfaction about the recent visit of the President of the European Commission Barroso to Baku, which confirmed that Azerbaijan is a priority of the EU. V.Dombrovskis informed about intensions to implement the LNG terminal project in Latvia.  

The two officials also discussed the cooperation in the area of education and among departments of different sectors.