Bakhyt Sultanov: Baku (continued)

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Today I met with colleagues of the Turkic-speaking countries - we have gathered for a meeting of the Ministers of Economy/Trade of the Cooperation Council of the Turkic-speaking States.

There is one key issue on the agenda - the search for ways of effective post-crisis development of our states.

The economies of the member countries of the Turkic Council show stable growth. The total GDP of the participants is more than 1.5 trillion US dollars. Moreover, it has grown by 214.2% over the decade. And our trade with our colleagues in the Turkic Council has increased from $3.3 billion. up to $6.9 billion. In just 6 months of this year, we have traded for $4 billion, of which $2.8 billion is our export. If the pace continues, we will be able to reach a trade turnover of $8 billion by the end of the year.

Our countries are located along the most important East-West Trans-Eurasian trade corridor (the route "Lianyungan – Urumqi – Khorgos – Kuryk port – Baku – Tbilisi – Kars"). We are now building commercial and industrial hubs along it to facilitate the logistics of delivery to the promising markets of Europe and South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India).

I invited Turkish, Azerbaijani and other foreign partners to cooperate in the development of these support centers of the commodity distribution system of Eurasia.

There is an excellent opportunity for all our countries to build optimal production and logistics chains with a huge potential for increasing trade and economic cooperation.

As a result of our meeting, all countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on FEZ cooperation.

By the way, all the participants agreed on the need to create an Investment fund of the Council of Turkic Countries. Both we and Bishkek offer to place its future office on our territories with registration in the Astana International Financial Center. No decision has been made yet, discussions are continuing.

On the sidelines of the Council, he held talks with Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Mush. We plan to sign an Agreement on trade in Services and Agreements on simplification of customs procedures by the end of the year. And most importantly, we discussed increasing the volume of transshipment along the Caspian corridor.

In general, I think that the visit to Azerbaijan was very productive for both political circles and business.

Now we will implement all the agreements in practice.