Anwar Gargash hailed the growing tourists flow from the UAE to Azerbaijan: “Recently, we have seen a huge growth in the number of people coming from the United Arab Emirates to Azerbaijan. We are one of the largest groups that come as tourists to Azerbaijan, about 120,000 last year.”
He said “we are also looking to extend the areas of cooperation in investment and trade in Azerbaijan.” “We have many ideas and projects that are basically being worked on. We have very good flight connections between Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Baku, which is excellent.”
Anwar Gargash highlighted some areas for possible expansion of cooperation: “The economic cooperation is very good. But there is still a lot to do in terms of investment and etc. We can see for example Azerbaijan`s tourism potential is fully recognized by many thousands of people who are coming here. We are also looking at cooperation in many other areas. We will see more of that in the coming period. In some areas, our economic cooperation is moving along the right path. There is still more work to do. We have signed many agreements that framed this cooperation whether it is the double taxation, protection of the investment, and agreements in various other areas. This cooperation is only going and developing positively.”
The most important part in Azerbaijani-UAE relationship, according to the minister, is that “both countries really look towards the future in investing in human capital, in presenting what is quite modern view, what is essential in the Muslim societies”. “Clearly, what we have seen in Azerbaijan and what we see in the UAE is an example that you can be a Muslim state and a modern state at the same time. I think this success that we see in Azerbaijan and the UAE is an example also to many other Muslim people and governments that we can actually achieve both.”
The UAE minister also spoke of his meeting with President Ilham Aliyev: “We were privileged to meet President Ilham Aliyev. I am delighted to be here in Baku. It`s always a pleasure to be here.”
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