Magazine: Good opportunities in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s economy has been developing dynamically in the last few years and it offers excellent opportunities for Hungarian products. Azerbaijan has already shown great interest in buying Hungarian industrial and agricultural products. On the other hand, Hungary also counts on Azeri investors appearing in our country. Our export to Azerbaijan has been developing dynamically in the last two years and in 2015 the export expansion was 10.8 percent if all sectors are considered. Agriculture’s contribution to this export increase was a sales growth above 30 percent in the Azeri market.

The country’s economic perspective and growth opportunities very much depend on the price of oil in the world market. This is the reason why the government has started to focus more on developing the infrastructure and identifying new means for achieving economic growth. Hungary can also play a role in these areas, e.g. Mol has already conducted talks with oil company SOCAR about a future cooperation, but technology transfer in the domains of water resources management and agriculture were also on the table.

In Azerbaijan 57.6 percent of the land can be used for agricultural production. A very high proportion, 38.3 percent of the active population works in the sector but agriculture’s contribution to the GDP is still only 6 percent. It is noteworthy, though, that the Azeri irrigate 28.8 percent of agricultural land. In 2015 Hungary’s agri-food export to Azerbaijan increased by 30.3 percent in value and by 78 percent in volume. For instance in comparison with 2014, our soft drink and flavoured mineral water export got almost 3.5 times bigger in terms of both value and volume. We also exported more live poultry, poultry meat, canned food and cocoa-based products.

The trade relations between the two countries can be strengthened further when on 8-9 October 2016 the Hungarian-Azeri Interparliamentary Economic Committee will meet again in Budapest, where the two parties plan to sign a strategic economic cooperation agreement. Let’s not forget that Azerbaijan could be Hungary’s gateway to the markets of other countries in the region that used to belong to the Soviet Union.