Azerbaijan ready to work with S Korea cos in major projects

TOKYO, December 16 (Itar-Tass) - Azerbaijan is ready to jointly work
with South Korea's companies in implementing major infrastructural
projects, Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan said in an
interview with the news agency Yonhap before the end of his two-day visit
to Seoul.
"Azerbaijan plans large-scale investments both in the energy sector
and infrastructural projects, including the construction of highways,
railways and development of information technologies, as well as the
agrarian sector," Elmar Mamedyarov said. "We are ready to cooperate both
with major South Korean concerns and medium-size companies." He also
offered to raise the level of the Baku-Seoul dialogue on issues of trade
and economic partnership. "Now our countries are holding this dialogue
within the framework of the bilateral economic committee, I propose its
transformation into a joint commission which would make it possible to
discuss a wider range of issues of bilateral cooperation and arising
problems," the foreign minister stressed.
During talks in Seoul on Tuesday, December 14, the two countries'
Foreign Ministers Kim Sung-hwan and Elmar Mamedyarov agreed to deepen
trade and economic partnership. The document on the results of their
meetings stresses, in particular, that the sides "agreed to closely
cooperate with the aim of creating a model of mutually advantageous
partnership with the use of natural resources of Azerbaijan and advanced
technologies of South Korea." The ministers expressed satisfaction with
the pace of development of ties in the spheres of politics, economy and
culture in the period after the establishment of diplomatic relations in
1992. Kim Sung-hwan, as the news agency Yonhap reports, "highly assessed
Baku's efforts to create a developed infrastructure, including highway and
railways, pointing to South Korean business circles' interest in
participating in joint projects."
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