Azerbaijan in active talks with UAE, India on cotton cooperation, official says

Azerbaijan is in talks with investors from the UAE and India to cooperate on cotton production and build a full production cycle — from raw material cultivation to textile processing, Yusif Abdullayev, Executive Director of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Agency (AZPROMO), said.

Addressing participants at the 5th Agribusiness Development Forum in Baku, held as part of Caspian Agro Week, Abdullayev also revealed that negotiations are ongoing with an Austrian company aimed at localising the production of tomato paste and ketchup within the country, Caliber.Az reports via local media.

"This approach is based on a fully integrated cluster model, covering not only raw material production but also cotton processing in the textile industry," he noted.

Abdullayev highlighted that one of AZPROMO’s key priorities is to attract foreign direct investment into Azerbaijan’s agribusiness sector while simultaneously strengthening export capacity for domestic producers: "These two directions complement each other. To increase competitiveness in exports, production must be integrated with processing, packaging, compliance with quality standards, logistics, and access to international markets within a unified value chain."

He further pointed out that Azerbaijan already possesses extensive experience in exporting agricultural goods globally, but underlined that the long-term objective is to advance this legacy to a more sophisticated level: "Our efforts are focused on forming complete value chains inside the country through the attraction of international capital, advanced technologies, and modern management practices."

By Jeyhun Aghazada