For many years, Azerbaijan and Latvia have been developing strong business ties. Currently, the main directions of bilateral cooperation between the two countries are trade relations, Azernews portal reports.
According to Ralfs Nemiro, Latvian Minister of Economy, foreign direct investments of Azerbaijan in Latvia reached €17 mio in the first quarter of 2019, compared to €13 mio during the same period of 2018.
“Azerbaijani FDI in Latvia have an increasing trend. However, Latvian FDI in Azerbaijan are still less than a million euros”, he said.
Nemiro believes that development of joint ventures is one of the most effective forms of economic cooperation between businesses of Azerbaijan and Latvia.
“At the moment, there are 50 companies with Azerbaijani capital in Latvia. Latvia is interested in mutually beneficial investment flows”, he noted.
As Nemiro pointed out, “Recently, food has been dominating in exports from Azerbaijan to Latvia, but export of mineral products, metals and metal products has begun to grow. The export from Latvia to Azerbaijan is dominated by food, in particular products of animal origin, as well as machinery and electrical equipment, metal products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, building materials, etc.”
Presently, some 40 Latvian companies operate in construction, services, manufacturing, communications, transport, trade, banking and insurance industries of Azerbaijan.