BILATERAL RELATIONS
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to boost trade turnover and increase cooperation across various sectors including defence, transportation and connectivity, country’s state-controlled news agency APP said.
During a joint press stakeout, following the exchange of pre-signed documents of various projects, the two leaders emphasized the importance of unlocking the full potential of bilateral trade and investment in a range of mutually beneficial areas.
Prime Minister Shehbaz said US$2 billion investment in Pakistan announced by the Azerbaijan President will bring dividends to both countries.
He said that a one-month time had been given to finalize all the projects and agreements in various sectors to be signed in April this year during the visit of Azerbaijan President to Pakistan.
“This will be the first quantum jump in our trade and investment relations and will be a huge reflection of our fraternal ties,” the prime minister said adding that “Our business, trade, and investment ties were not reflecting the true strength of our relations but today we have achieved that target and in a months’ time we will celebrate this great decision into action”.
President Aliyev regretted that the bilateral trade turnover was only several tens of million of US dollars that was needed to be increased.
“I think we have the way how to do it”, he said adding that “We received concrete projects from Pakistan, and Azerbaijani representatives are evaluating them, today we put ambitious and realistic targets to finalize all the discussions within one month and by the beginning of April, the documents will be prepared for signing”.
The President of Azerbaijan emphasized that these projects covered infrastructure development areas as well as energy, economic, mining and others.
He said during his meeting with PM Shehbaz Sharif, they discussed important issues, and reaffirmed resolve to continue to support each other on all issues of international relations.
He said they also discussed numerous issues of current international development and cooperation in defence area including defence industry.
“Azerbaijan has already acquired defence equipment from Pakistan and we are satisfied with the quality of this equipment and we will continue to do to it.
At the same time, he said, they also discussed opportunity of joint manufacturing in defence industrial items, which will be another important sector of bilateral cooperation.
ERMD/APP
