CNN MARKETPLACE MIDDLE EAST BUSINESS PROGRAM AIRS PART OF PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV`S INTERVIEW

Baku, February 28 (AzerTAc). On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos held on January 30 this year, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has given an interview to the U.S.-based “CNN” channel.

On February 27, the channel aired a part of the interview in its “Marketplace Middle
East” business program.
The interview mainly focused on global financial crisis, international oil market
and Azerbaijan`s role in this market.
In the interview the President said: “Only two countries of non-OPEC members
declared that they are going to cut the production and one of them was Azerbaijan,
others are silent. I think that they should be broader format of non-OPEC and OPEC
cooperation agreement on the volumes and this agreement should be respected. No one
should, you know, try to achieve better prices at the sake of anyone.”
On the price of oil, the Azerbaijani leader noted: “I think that the fair price
could be something around 100 dollars. That will allow companies to invest more
easily. 60-70 dollars is a marginal price, the companies can invest and can not
invest, and that will depend mainly on the capacity of the companies. Not all of oil
companies have equal potential and financial resources. I think that the price,
which can satisfy all, and consumers and the market, can tolerate the price.
Producing countries can easily divert, as we call it, black gold into human gold,
and companies can invest more and feel themselves more comfortable.”
The interview also touched upon successful economic reforms carried out in
Azerbaijan. On the issue President Ilham Aliyev said: “We are diversifying the
economy, we are reducing our dependence on oil production and price and are
investing into ICT, into infrastructure, agriculture, education, healthcare, and I
think that we have already achieved substantial successes.”
As regards the role of Azerbaijan in energy market, the Head of State pointed out
“we never considered us to be a kind of alternative route. What we are doing, we are
just investing in production, building pipelines and now we are transporting our oil
and gas to the western markets. It happened so that just a couple of years ago
energy security issue became so urgent to be resolved and dependence on one producer
is creating some concerns. I can tell you that Caspian resources and particularly
Azerbaijan is the only new source of gas supply to European markets.”