Tbilisi is becoming more and more attractive city every year, as it develops and shows positive changes. Of course, we are very happy to see all this, said the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, Ali Asadov, during his speech at the “Tbilisi Silk Road Forum”.
He claimed that Georgia and Azerbaijan are implementing important joint projects.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I greet dear participants of the forum, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank our Georgian friends, and mainly I would like to thank the honorable Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili, for such traditional hospitality, which was shown to me and also to Azerbaijan delegation.
I especially want to note that we are very happy to be here today in the capital of Georgia. Every year Tbilisi becomes more and more attractive city as it develops and shows positive changes. Of course, we are very happy to see all this.
At the same time, I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Irakli Garibashvili. Thank you for inviting me to participate in the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum. For several years now, this forum has proven to be an important international platform to discuss agendas and issues of regional and global importance.
Dear fellow participants, historically, Azerbaijan and Georgia are located on the route of the Great Silk Road, connecting the East and the West. Both countries played an important role in trade and economic development, as well as in strengthening cultural exchanges between Europe and Asia. This tradition is already present in modern history, and of course, Azerbaijan and Georgia again became the first countries to support this concept, which implies the restoration of the Great Silk Road.
The first person who joined this initiative was the national leader of Azerbaijan, Mr. Heydar Aliyev, and in this case we are talking about the restoration of the historical Silk Road, and then the president of Georgia was Mr. Eduard Shevardnadze. It should be noted that this conference was held in Baku in 1998, where the leaders of our countries participated, in addition to 30 international organizations and 35 countries.
As a result of this conference, multilateral agreements regarding international transport were discussed. It mainly concerned the development of the Europe-Caucasus-Asia corridor, based on the EU TRASECA program. The TRASECA program has made a significant contribution to the promotion of multimodal and transit transport among member countries and has expanded cooperation in areas such as trade, transport, economy, and also further expanded the economic potential of these countries.
The visionary policy aimed at turning Azerbaijan into a regional transit hub is also continued by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev.
Over the past 20 years, our country has been the initiator and participant of several important regional projects. Among these regional projects, we can name the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the South Caucasus Corridor, which includes TANAP and TAP, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, as well as the Baku International Trade Seaport.
As a result of the investments made by the government of Azerbaijan, specifically in the transport infrastructure, we have built thousands of kilometers of roads and railways. We also launched international airports and increased the civil, marine and air fleets and fleets, as well as created an economic zone in Alata.
Of course, this initiative made it possible for the country to meet the growing demands for transportation through the Middle Corridor. And besides these infrastructural projects, we cooperate with Georgia and other partners in other areas in order to meet similar needs, and we already see the results of such cooperation,” said Ali Asadov.
Tbilisi is hosting the Silk Road Forum on October 26-27.
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