Growth, innovation and progress

İLHAM ALİYEV

The Anniversary Summit of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Organization (BSEC) is a very important event for the entire BSEC family.

BSEC was established to promote peace, stability and prosperity through economic cooperation in the region. These goals and objectives deeply resonate with Azerbaijan, both its government and people. And thanks to our history, culture and development priorities, Azerbaijan is well-placed to contribute to these goals together with our friends and members of BSEC.

Interestingly, the past 20 years also mark an important era for Azerbaijan as a sovereign country. These years, first and foremost, coincide with the restoration of independence, establishment and development of political and economic ties with countries around the world. Thanks to the targeted reforms and sound macroeconomic policy, today Azerbaijan enjoys political stability, unprecedented economic growth and development.

Example of cooperation
Throughout these years we have always been pleased to share our experience. Our country’s initiatives designed to promote regional economic cooperation, as well as participation in other related regional integration processes, have also enabled us to contribute and further facilitate the economic cooperation in the region pursued within the BSEC. Besides, the partnership of Azerbaijan with Georgia and Turkey in the fields of energy and transports can serve as an example of successful regional cooperation based on the principles of national interests, commercial viability and mutual benefit.

The earliest resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with respect to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and indivisibility of the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan would bring an additional necessary and strong impetus for further development and cooperation in the region.

The BSEC region is important economically, as an area concentrating rich economic and intellectual potential to pursue economic growth and development, innovation and progress. We are of a view that the economic dimension of collaboration in the Black Sea region is very promising. Being a part of a wider Black Sea Region, our country is also very interested in developing intra-regional cooperation within BSEC as a way to facilitate inter-regional partnerships while paying special attention to fully using comparative advantages of the region to achieve the expected goal.

Meanwhile, we should unify our efforts in order to make the outcomes of the organization’s activities more effective and sustainable. As a founding member of BSEC, Azerbaijan has always been deeply interested in seeing the organization become strong, efficient organization, able to promote economic integration and to address the challenges impeding the cooperation in the region.

We also believe that it is crucial to enhance the effectiveness of BSEC through strengthening the business dimension in its activity by more active involvement of the BSEC related bodies and business communities of the member states.

Using this opportunity, I would like to express our gratitude to the Republic of Turkey for hosting the 20th Anniversary Summit in Istanbul as well as our belief that this event will be a success, capable to advance a qualitatively new level of economic cooperation in the region.

The past 20 years also mark an important era for Azerbaijan as a sovereign country. These years, first and foremost, coincide with the restoration of independence, establishment and development of political and economic ties with countries around the world. Thanks to the targeted reforms and sound macroeconomic policy, today Azerbaijan enjoys political stability, unprecedented economic growth and development.