Azerbaijan bolsters economic cooperation with Brazil
Located in the far-off Caucasus region, where Eastern Europe meets Southwest Asia, the Republic of Azerbaijan is proposing a major expansion in its technical and economic cooperation with Brazil—to celebrate not just the 100th anniversary of its independence, but also the 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two nations.
The idea is to boost bilateral trade—still modest, taking into account the potential on both sides. Last year, Brazil exported to Azerbaijan $172 million, whereas imports added up to a mere $112 thousand.
In the view of Subsecretary Fernando Simas, sub-secretary at Brazil’s Foreign Relations Ministry, the trade between the two countries has great room for future expansion—one of the signs of this potential being the sale of Embraer commercial planes to Azerbaijan Airlines in 2014, a purchase estimated at $180 million.
However, in order to keep the exports of other industrial and agricultural products on the rise, Brazil needs to buy more from the Asian country. “We can make our exchange even stronger, also when it comes to Azerbaijani exports in Brazil,” Simas said.
Capoeira and jujitsu
In keeping with the principle that mutual knowledge helps boost commercial relations, Azerbaijani Ambassador Elkhan Polukhov said that Brazil is greatly admired by the population of his country, not just for its achievements in football, but for “the masterful skills and art of Brazilian capoeira fighters and jujitsu idols.”
Martial arts are among Azerbaijanis’ passions. Two weeks ago, the country held a global capoeira championship in its capital Baku, where renowned Brazilian names bagged medals. Mestre Pança, of the Capoeira Federation of Goiás state, won the first place.
Polukhov believes the popularity of Brazilians—as a nation that stands out in sports as well as other sectors—will help warm up bilateral trade even further. The good thing about Brazil–Azerbaijan ties, he went on to say, is that it can go so much further than it already has. That is so much the case that Azerbaijan is offering scholarships to Brazilians showing a great performance in a number of fields.
The ambassador declared that Azerbaijan, in turn, plans to make its presence felt in areas linked to culture and education in Brazil. He noted, for instance, that his country supports the Escola Municipal Azerbaijão—a public school in western Rio de Janeiro, where students learn computer science with machines donated by the Asian country. “In this school, there are painting and chess competitions, and winners are awarded. Rio and Baku are sister cities,” he pointed out.
Elkhan Polukhov said that his country seeks to share its knowledge of wrestling—extremely popular among Azerbaijanis—to Brazilians. The country also brings over to Brazil professionals and athletes that have proved their success in the sport. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is well represented in international chess tournaments, and many of its athletes attain renown for their Olympic medals in weightlifting.
He mentioned Azerbaijan’s interest in benefiting from Brazil’s state-of-the-art technology, especially in agribusiness. To his judgment, Brazil, with its vast experience with bountiful harvests, could contribute by sharing its technological expertise in cotton growing, for instance.
Azerbaijan is known for its exclusively organic agriculture. According to Polukhov, the country wishes to learn from the Brazilian experience without forgoing its rules on organic agriculture.
If Brazilian executives want to invest in Azerbaijan, Polukhov said, “they’ll find a large number of business opportunities.” These, he argued, come as result of the combination of good transport infrastructure, qualified workforce, and its close connections with large-scale markets, like China, India, and Russia.
History
The festivities held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the country’s independence have a special meaning to nationals: on May 18, 1918, Azerbaijan was considered the world’s first democratic Muslim nation. The country was occupied in 1920 by former Soviet forces, and now its main problem is the Armenian invasion. The total area occupied by Armenia includes the Nagorno-Karabakh territory and seven other neighboring areas. Altogether, they amount to 20 percent of the size of Azerbaijan.
