During the last 20 years we had over 350 billion dollars of investments in our economy - President Ilham Aliyev (FULL SPEECH)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 22. During the last 20
years we had over 350 billion dollars of investments in our
economy, almost half—$170 billion—in investments from foreign
sources, President Ilham Aliyev said during his speech at the Azerbaijan-Latvia Business Forum,
Trend reports.

Speech by President Ilham Aliyev

- Mr. President, members of the official delegation, guests from
Latvia, ladies and gentlemen,

I'm very glad to host the President of Latvia on an official
visit. We had excellent discussions and documents signed, and among
many things we discussed also the issue of economic partnership.
And especially the business forum which is organized today really
demonstrates a mutual aspiration to do business together.

I'm glad that the President is accompanied by a big group of
business representatives from Latvia, and I'm sure that the
interaction with the Azerbaijani colleagues will be interesting and
productive. Of course, any kind of business activity has several
factors in its background, and first of all is stability in the
country where you do business, predictability, business climate,
investment climate, and many others, including connectivity and
accessibility to export markets, and also the size of domestic
markets.

We tried in Azerbaijan hard in order to transform the country
from being purely dependent on oil and gas into a country which can
be proud of the process of diversification of our economy. If you
look at the structure of our GDP, we see rapid growth during the
last 4–5 years. The share of non-oil industry in our GDP grew from
50 to more than 70%, and it continues. So this means that
diversification of the economy is already a reality.

Now we are actively working on diversification of our exports.
Though it will be difficult to do because production of natural gas
in Azerbaijan is growing and will grow, and the biggest part of the
gas we produce is exported. So non-oil- and gas-related industry
and economy have to match the growing production profile and the
growing demand in the international markets, primarily
European.

Financial stability is also important for any investor, whether
it's local or foreign. And here also we can report good
achievements. Our financial system is stable. We steadily, based on
the strategic plan, reduced dependence on borrowings. Today we
borrow only for projects which demand a high level of technological
performance. And we borrow only from leading international
institutions like the World Bank, EBRD, Asian Development Bank,
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and some others.

Reduction of foreign debt, I think this plan is done. We have a
foreign debt which is equal to 6.1% of our GDP. Our currency and
gold reserves exceed the foreign debt by more than 18 times. So in
other words, we could reduce our foreign commitments to zero within
probably a couple of months.

But of course, there is a big demand for additional investments,
primarily aimed at the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the
liberated territories of Garabagh and East Zangezur. Investment
priorities are clear; probably we already discussed them partly and
will continue to discuss.

And also I'm sure that Azerbaijani colleagues also informed our
guests about the figures. During the last 20 years we had over 350
billion dollars of investments in our economy, almost half—$170
billion—in investments from foreign sources. So an
investment-friendly business climate was also one of the targets in
front of us, and it has mostly been achieved.

With respect to our plans, we are continuing investments in
Azerbaijan and also outside, primarily in energy facilities in the
neighborhood and also in the EU area. And this is also supported by
the European Commission. We have several formats of cooperation
with the European Commission. One of them is energy
cooperation.

The European Commission in its public statements always refers
to Azerbaijan as a reliable partner in the energy field. And this
energy is growing. We started from oil sales; now we export natural
gas, we export electricity, petrochemicals, and are planning to
export green energy. So one of the areas of investments which is in
our portfolio is renewables, with a huge potential for sun and
wind.

We are already enjoying strong interest from major actors. Our
plan, which is based not only on our aspirations but also on
signed, legally binding contracts, is to have 8 gigawatts of solar,
wind, and hydro power by 2032. And this is absolutely realistic. We
will largely substitute natural gas, which we use for electricity
production, with renewables, and that will save us several billion
cubic meters of gas, which is so needed now on international
markets.

It was needed always during the last several years, and during
the last couple of months even more. And the plan is to increase
production and definitely to increase exports. Today, 10 members of
the European Union are receiving natural gas from Azerbaijan. The
total number of countries is 16. And by this parameter, we are
number one in the world.

We are not the largest producer and exporter; there are much
bigger players, but among countries that export gas by pipelines,
with respect to geography of supply, we are number one.

And for many countries in the European Union, Azerbaijani gas
and oil make up the largest part of their energy consumption
portfolio. Another area which we have largely concentrated on was,
is, and will be connectivity. Here, geography is complemented by
our investments and long-term policy to transform Azerbaijan, which
is a landlocked country, into an international transportation hub.
It has already happened. Transportation corridors from East to West
and vice versa, North to South and vice versa, are already
functioning. On Azerbaijani territory, all construction works have
been completed. What we are doing now is only investing in
modernization, in creating new physical infrastructure, in
digitalization, including the opportunities provided by AI, in
order to make transportation through Azerbaijan not only the safest
in today's geopolitical situation but also competitive from the
point of view of fees, transportation costs, and timing. And here,
there is a big room for investments because connectivity between
East and West today, without Azerbaijan, is rather problematic. We
have already invested significantly, as I said, and also, in
cooperation with friendly countries, with our immediate neighbors
and neighbors of our neighbors, we have managed to provide a safe
and reliable transportation route for cargo. By the way, the number
of cargoes going through Azerbaijan is growing year after year.

We also discussed today largely the opportunities in
agricultural cooperation between our countries, and the co-chairs
of the Joint Economic Commission are both ministers of agriculture.
So definitely this will continue to be one of the priorities for
our government, taking into account that more than 40% of our
population lives in rural areas, and this infrastructure has been
created, as well as business opportunities in the regions. Of
course, they are different from business opportunities in the
capital. Therefore, agriculture, tourism, and water management—all
these are projects which state and private companies are
implementing in Azerbaijan, and I think they will be of interest to
Latvian investors as well. Also, the Alat Free Economic Zone
provides good services and very investment-friendly legislation,
which already allows it to attract foreign investments in
substantial volumes. Though today it is clear that attracting
foreign investments is not an easy task, I think the legal
framework and proximity to the main trading seaports and the
railroad make the Alat Free Economic Zone attractive.

One of the issues which we also discussed and probably will also
be a potential area of cooperation is the defense industry. We
found out that both countries are actively developing their
capabilities, and as far as we are concerned, we are already
exporting products of our defense industry companies—private and
state—to a large number of countries. So joint manufacturing,
cooperation, and creating synergy, I think, are also something we
can look at. And many others.

Today, in our brief remarks, it is difficult to embrace all the
areas of partnership, but I'm sure that during the forum and
follow-up—definitely there should be a follow-up, just not to make
this event isolated—many other opportunities will be explored. And
definitely, we as a country, and I'm sure our business community,
are interested in investment opportunities in Latvia, in your
priority projects.

As we discussed today, we can table a list of potential projects
where both countries can successfully participate. And the last
point is about the importance of the President's visit. I'm once
again very grateful for accepting my invitation. I enjoyed very
much our tête-à-tête conversation, as well as the meeting with
delegations and our discussion during lunch. And thank you once
again. I wish you a pleasant stay. I'm sure that our business
delegations will also support all these positive trends. So welcome
once again.