Azeri oil company to work on Moldova’s energy market

The state-run oil company “Socar” of Azerbaijan was invited to enter the Moldovan energy market. Thus, the company is to open soon a branch in Chisinau, Prime Minister Filat said after a visit paid to Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Premier had meetings with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his Azeri counterpart Artur Rasi-Zade and with representatives of the business sphere. Vlad Filat said that a separate subject for discussion was the energy cooperation between the two countries. They also discussed the possibility of Moldova taking part in crossborder energy projects such as “Agri” and “Nabucco”. The Premier stressed that the given projects allow diversifying the sources of energy. “Profiting from this occasion, we reiterated that our country is open for foreign investments and invited the Azeri companies to invest in Moldova’s economy, especially in agriculture, food industry, winemaking and tourism,” said the Premier. Early in April, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumakov will pay a visit to Baku to discuss the implementation of joint projects in the wine and food industries. “We also agreed to convene the bilateral intergovernmental economic cooperation commission between Moldova and Azerbaijan in the first half of 2012,” said Vlad Filat. The two officials also considered holding common events dedicated to 20 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states and the Days of Azeri Culture in Moldova and the Days of Moldovan Culture in Baku.