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| Ilham Aliyev and Mikheil Saakashvili met in Tbilisi on June 14. |
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said at a joint news briefing with his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, who is paying his first official visit to Georgia, that the two countries agreed to standardize the transit tariffs for freight transported by rail.
“We will reduce tariffs for transportation of freight by Georgian railway. It will help us to attract more freight. The route from Central Asia, via Azerbaijan and Georgia, to Europe is the shortest, but it should also be the cheapest,” Mikheil Saakashvili said.
President Saakashvili said, while speaking at a joint news briefing after the signing ceremony, that Azerbaijan is the most important partner for Georgia. He stressed that the economic relations with Georgia’s neighboring country are developing dynamically.
The Georgian and Azerbaijani Presidents expressed readiness to cooperate in the construction of a railway link between Azerbaijan and Turkey via Georgia; however as the Georgian President marked, an additional USD 700-800 million is needed for the undertaking of this project, and this is impossible without donor assistance.
The issue was discussed during Mikheil Saakashvili’s visit to Turkey in May.
The two Georgian and Azeri officials also signed five agreements over cooperation within the energy sector; coordination of railway transport activities; cooperation and mutual assistance between the Georgian Finance Ministry and the Azerbaijani Ministry of Taxes; and protocol on cooperation in the field of civil aviation as well as an agreement on cooperation between the state televisions of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
“The future of our countries depends on the successful implementation of our plans. I am sure that the well being of our peoples is quite possible through the coordination of our joint activities. The agreements signed today will further boost our relations,” President Aliyev said at a joint news briefing on June 14.