Baku, Azerbaijan, April 18
By Azad Hasanli – Trend:
Turkey does not see any obstacle to switching to settlements in national currency with Azerbaijan, Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
"Unfortunately, we have already seen how negatively the currency fluctuations affected our economies. We believe that trade settlements in Turkish lira and Azerbaijani manats would be the most effective way to get rid of damage, which the currency fluctuations can cause to the economies of our countries," the minister said.
Zeybekci stressed that a relevant agreement could accelerate the process of switching to settlements in the national currencies.
Over the past years, Turkey has significantly increased the share of lira in trade settlements with other countries.
If in 2010, the share of lira in the export was only 2.6 percent, now the figure exceeds 13 percent. As for the import, the share of Turkey's national currency increased from 3.1 percent to almost 8 percent during the same period.
According to Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, in 2017, the trade with Turkey amounted to $ 2.64 billion, of which $ 1.37 billion accounted for export to Turkey.
The trade turnover between the two countries grew by 14.8 percent in 2017.
In the first quarter of 2018, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey amounted to $573.1 million (showing an increase of 3.7 percent over the year).
