News

On 28 June in Vilnius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius and Azerbaijan’s Minister of Taxes Fazil Mammadov co-chaired the 3rd meeting of intergovernmental commission on bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Lithuania. During the meeting, representatives of Lithuania and Azerbaijan expressed willingness of the two countries to further strengthen and develop mutual ties, and bilateral relations. The meeting highlighted the important role of the commission that was established four years ago in advancing mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

At the meeting, officials exchanged information on the current economic situation in the countries, economic policy and measures for its implementation. At the meeting, officials noted that even though last year the bilateral trade grew by 35.7 per cent, huge untapped potential still existed in the area of trade and investment. They agreed on joint action to prepare for business missions, to promote business contacts, and decided to share information about investment projects, and export opportunities.

Participants of the meeting discussed progress made in implementing the cooperation guidelines agreed at the 2012 Summit. They noted that since the last meeting of the commission, Lithuania and Azerbaijan had launched two new EU Twinning projects on radiation safety and tourism development. The commission agreed to continue to encourage institutions of the two countries to look for opportunities of implementing new Twinning projects.

The meeting reviewed progress in advancing agricultural cooperation and implementing the cooperation agreement that was signed by the Ministries of Agriculture of Lithuania and Azerbaijan.

At the meeting, officials noted that IT was among the key areas for cooperation.

Azerbaijan was invited to become actively involved in the Viking container train project. The train connects countries of the Baltic and Black Sea regions, enabling expeditious and reliable cargo shipment from Azerbaijan to Europe at a low price.

Cooperation in the field of science was identified as particularly successful; the importance of cooperation between higher education institutions of the two countries was underlined. Even 102 students from Azerbaijan studied at universities in Lithuania in the 2012/2013 academic year.

This is already the 3rd meeting of intergovernmental commission on bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Lithuania. The first meeting was held on 26 May 2010 in Vilnius, and the second meeting took place on 2 April 2012 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

During the visit of the delegation of Azerbaijan, Linkevičius also had an individual meeting with Azerbaijan’s Minister of Taxes Mammadov and discussed key issues of bilateral cooperation.