 Mr. President, distinguished guests, dear friends, members of the World Economic Forum, it is a very special honour to welcome you all to this first World Economic Forum Strategic Dialogue on the future of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Allow me to thank you, Mr. President Aliyev, and the Government of Azerbaijan personally for kindly hosting us here today in the beautiful city of Baku. And if I may add a personal remark, it's exactly 20 years ago that I have been here the last time, and I'm so impressed by the progress and I have to say the beauty of the city of Baku today. It's a honour for the World Economic Forum to organise this meeting in Azerbaijan given the country's unique place in the region. Azerbaijan in many ways represents a microcosm of the region's great opportunities. The country has witnessed impressive growth rates in recent years thanks to responsible exploitation of its exceptional resource potential. At the same time, it has shown a unique will and skill in using these valuable resources to support the diversification of the country's economy through very wise reforms. Today, Azerbaijan leads the way in the financial sector, in information technology, in construction, and is an increasingly part of what has been called the new Silk Road. Yet we should remember that no country in the region, be it Azerbaijan or its leading regional partners, can realise the full potential on its own. The region has many riches to tap into in order to ensure its long-term economic success. These are not limited to natural resources only. They range from a unique geographical position to a highly educated workforce and an innovative spirit. This potential will be best exploited by coming together and working together. Many regions across the world, be it the European continent or more recently the ASEAN region, have come to the realization that economic, social and political gains are to be had from uniting their complementary strengths in the spirit of trust and long-term cooperation. This is why the World Economic Forum is initiating. It's not just organising this meeting, but initiating a long-term new initiative, the scenarios for the South Caucasus and Central Asia. This process will fully develop over the coming 18 months and will engage a broad set of regional and international stakeholders of the region and beyond in a strategic reflection on prospects of regional economic integration. It will devise scenarios for the region's long-term future to help us think creatively and robustly about the region's unique evolution potential. Today, we will start this process and we will explore critical themes for prospects, energy and natural resources, trade and supply change, entrepreneurship and human capital, finance and long-term investing. Throughout the day, we have a chance to identify the region's unique opportunities in each of those four areas, as well as to think of the innovative steps that can be taken to further realize these opportunities in the coming years. I look forward to hearing about some of your insights and engaging you in discussions with our exceptional panel speakers here today. Let me just introduce to you our panel speakers of this opening session. Mr. Andre Kostin, Chairman and Chief Executive of VTB Bank Russian Federation, his Excellency, Mr. Otobayev, the first Vice Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic, Mr. Sankintayev, the first Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, his Excellency Taner Yildiz, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey. Before hearing from each of your views, dear panelists, we will now view a brief video providing context around some of today's discussion, and I will invite some participants to vote on three possible alternatives, representing possible futures for the region's economy. As you see, we will conduct the meeting today in a very interactive way. Based on his long-standing experience of the region's unique opportunities, Mr. Frederik Starr, whom I would like to thank for joining us today, will provide us with his impressions on the region's long-term potential in reaction to these voting results. I will then invite President Aliyev to share his views on the future of Azerbaijan, the South Caucasus and Central Asia as an introduction to our discussions today, which I trust will be fruitful. Mr. President, I also want to use this opportunity to thank you particularly for your friendship and your partnership with the World Economic Forum. Having attended for seven uninterrupted years at our annual meeting, I think you have contributed substantially to place Azerbaijan and this region on the international map and to show to the global political and economic community what this region can contribute to world prosperity and possibly world cooperation and peace. I now hope that you will enjoy today's discussions. I welcome you again very cordially and now we will have an opportunity to look first at the video. Europe is the world's largest trading block. Asia is fast coming together and driving the global economy forward. Couldn't integrated Central Asia and South Caucasus connect these centers of growth to become the world economy's new Silk Road and latest frontier opportunity? The region's history as a trading route dates back to a rich cultural heritage. Today, rail transport from China to Europe is 70% cheaper and emits over 90% less carbon than air freight. Over half of businesses state that improving public infrastructure is a critical priority for development in the region. And it's estimated that regional integration could result in 100% increase in GDP per capita in just 10 years, thereby benefiting the region's valuable human capital. The region is full of untapped potential. Azerbaijan's production of natural gas has grown over 200% in eight years. Kazakhstan's Kashgan Field is estimated to be one of the world's six largest untapped oil fields. And Turkmenistan has the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world. Ever-increasing financial windfalls are providing the region with the opportunity to get onto the right track. Foreign direct investment increased ninefold between 2000 and 2009 and several countries are building capital reserves that could support long-term investment for the region's future. But much work needs to be done to establish the region as tomorrow's next frontier of growth and development. What can we do about it? Do you believe you have the possibility to vote now? Do you believe that the region's future will be most likely first more integrated, second more fragmented, and third more polarized? Please push your device. We will see the results in a moment, Mr. President, and I think it's a very good result. And as we know, I think beliefs very much shape also realities. Now, Professor Stahl, would you comment on those results, please? Very positive. What does integration or coordination, maybe more appropriate term, actually mean? Well, we know from the energy sector in this miraculous 15 years what it means. It's energy going in every direction from Central Asia, from the Caspian, from the Caucasus, from this spot. But there's another factor emerging that may be in the future at least as bigger and bigger, and that is trade and transport. And this is something that seems to be absolutely worth watching, not local transport. It's not just melons from here to Georgia and pomegranates from Georgia to here. It is continental trade from Hamburg to Hanoi, through the Caucasus, through Azerbaijan, through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, so forth, all the way to China and also across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and to India. So this is something which is coming, but it's also been here in the past. 6,000 years ago, currency from this region, silver dirhams, were the absolute currency of choice from Sweden to Sri Lanka. So it was closed off for many hundreds of years, and the Soviet borders prevented this interaction, this integration. But now this is open. China moved quickly after 91 to open with Europe a direct transport, and now, since 2001, it's been possible also to add the direct routes to India thanks to the opening in Afghanistan. So something very big is happening. This region right here is turning into a kind of land Suez, linking parts of the continent. This is already not a dream, but a fact. There's over 40 billion dollars of investments that have been made already in this just the southern corridor. And that means a new railroad across the belt of India. It means right here, it means new railroads north, south, east, west, new roads, new pipelines, new port just south of here. Similarly in Turkmenistan, all this is going on. Huge investments are already being made. So the question isn't whether this is going to happen, but exactly when and how. The obvious conclusion is that if you want to play a part in it in the future, the time to move is now. Thank you, Professor Starr. I think we should now with great pleasure listen to President Aliyev and who will share his views on the future of the region. But before doing so, I would also like to acknowledge in the audience the participation of distinguished heads of states and prime ministers, not only from the region, but I should say interested into the region. President Aliyev, so floor is yours. Dear ladies and gentlemen, the guests like to greet you all in Azerbaijan and express my gratitude for participating at this remarkable event. I'd like especially to express my gratitude to Professor Schwab for accepting our invitation to host World Economic Forum in Baku. And for all the support our country gets from participating at the World Economic Forum. As Professor Schwab underlined, I participated already seven times and I can tell that this participation and participation at the discussions and communications with business elite of the world helped us a lot to diversify our economy. Because our economy development started with energy sector and still energy sector is the most attractive for foreign investments, but our main objective now is to diversify the economy. And in order to do it, we need to present ourselves to the world business community, not only as a country with important geographical location and natural resources, but also as a country which is committed to reforms, committed to transformation and to diversification. And I can tell you that the opportunities which World Economic Forum provides at Davos meetings helped us to develop relationship with the companies which had no idea about Azerbaijan in the past. Our country is relatively young. We only have 21 years of independence, but Azerbaijan is a country of great history, traditions, culture. I'm sure our guests will have a chance also to know more about Azerbaijan. But as an independent country, we leave only 21 years. And Professor Schwab mentioned that his first visit to Azerbaijan was March 93. Maybe that was the most difficult time for our young independent nation. Our independence had only less than two years of experience. And the situation in Azerbaijan at that time I think was the worst in post-Soviet area. We had internal clashes. That was a time of civil war. That was a time of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan which ended in occupation of 20 percent of our internationally recognized territories. And actually, 93 was a turning point for development because after mid-93 situation started to stabilize. We started to implement very serious and radical political and economic reforms and Azerbaijan started to present itself to international community. That was the beginning of transformation from planned economy to market economy, from one party system to multi-party system, from totalitarianism to democracy. And I can tell you that 20 years, of course, is not a very big period from historical point of view, but at the same time this period was a real period of transformation. Azerbaijan managed in the beginning of its reforms to attract major investments to energy sector and we are grateful to investors, to big energy companies for investing in Azerbaijan. We managed at the latest stage to transform direction of economic development from energy to non-energy sector and to attract investments in the sectors which are not related to oil and gas. And at the same time, we continued with economic and political reforms and this process is continuing now and that will create good opportunities for sustainable development of Azerbaijan in the coming years. We have a very advantageous geographical location but without infrastructure, this location doesn't mean a lot. We have natural resources and we have built already diversified transportation network for our hydrocarbons because Azerbaijan is a landlocked country therefore in order to export our oil and gas we needed to build pipelines and I think that was the biggest challenge in the end of 90s, the beginning of this century and that challenge was successfully met. Today we have a diversified network of pipelines, seven oil and gas pipelines which transport Azerbaijani oil and gas to international and European markets. At the same time, Azerbaijan has already started to play a transit role for our partners across the Caspian with respect to transportation of hydrocarbons. But our main target since last 10 years was diversification of economy and if you look at the economic development of Azerbaijan we'll see that our economy was one of the fastest growing economies in the world for the last 10 years. GDP grew three times, 300%, industrial production 2.5 times. We managed to reduce unemployment now the level of unemployment is 5.2%. 10 years ago almost half of our population lived in poverty, now poverty level is 6% and budget spending grew almost 20 times and inflation is around 1%. So these are the developments of the last 10 years and we're also very glad to see the reflection of our achievements in the assessment of World Economic Forum because World Economic Forum ranks Azerbaijan number 46 with respect to competitiveness of the economy and number one, the fourth consecutive year number one in CIS. At the same time, even during the times of economic and financial crisis our economy still was growing even when the oil prices dropped to a very substantial level our economy still was growing because already non-energy sector started to produce good results and all the major credit rating agencies Fitch, S&P and Moody's upgraded Azerbaijan's credit ratings recently which is also a good indication of the reforms. We are now transforming the oil wealth into human capital and one of the main targets for the future is education. Education is the most important factor for any successful development of any country and investments to education the context between our universities and the leading universities of the world allow us to plan our economic future based on a very intelligent human capital. At the same time, we are now investing in the new technologies and ICT sector becomes one of the priorities in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan already became member of the restricted club of the countries with space industry. This February, first our satellite other space one was launched successfully and this is only the beginning of the development of the space industry in Azerbaijan. So these years of independence were the years of transformation of political system and economic system but also the years of active investments in the areas which will generate wealth in the years to come and the investment climate to create a positive investment climate was one of the priorities in the beginning of our reforms and for the last 10 years we got more than 130 billion dollars of investments and part of that investments are foreign investments. Good investment climate predictable political situation stable situation in the country and of course regional connection so these are the main prerequisites for success for any country. Today one of the topics which we will address of course is regional cooperation, integration and I'm very glad to see the results by the way I expected something like that because Azerbaijan plays its role in regional cooperation. The projects which we have started in mid-90s were aimed not only at the economic development of Azerbaijan but also at the broad regional cooperation with the first country which opened the Caspian Sea for foreign investments. We are the first country to build a corridor from Caspian to Mediterranean and from Caspian to Black Sea. Those oil and gas corridors then started to play its role as a general geopolitical and transportation corridors. We are now finalizing the implementation of one of the most important projects which is railroad connection between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and that will not be a regional project as our friend Mr. Starr mentioned that will be the project which will connect Europe and Asia through Azerbaijan and through the neighboring countries and I'm very proud that we played one of the most important role in implementing this project not only with our financial resources but also with our commitments and political will was shown in order to implement this project. And of course energy factor which as far as our government is concerned is not the main priority any longer but our energy potential plays and will play more important role for energy security of the region and particularly energy security of Europe. And two years ago we signed with European Union the strategic partnership memorandum on energy which is now being implemented and one of the most remarkable developments of the last period was agreement on the project called TANAP trans-anatolian pipeline. Idea was generated by Azerbaijan and supported strongly by our partners in Turkey and Georgia and Azerbaijan has undertaken the major financial commitment in order to implement this project and to build another corridor for at least 100 years because taking into account the huge gas reserves of Azerbaijan and potential reserves in the region this corridor can play its role for decades to come. And of course regional cooperation can be achieved only in politically stable and developing countries. We will talk today about transportation routes about cooperation, integration and it is possible only when all the countries involved have the same attitude to this process and I'm glad that the region of Caspian Central Asia and Azerbaijan and here in the region we see the future in close ties in cooperation, integration unification of our efforts in order to provide better life for our people and better future for our countries. Once again dear friends I'd like to welcome you to our country once again express my gratitude to Professor Schwab and his team for holding this conference and this forum in Baku and I'm sure that the results of this event will have a very serious implications on our day-to-day life and the region will be more stable more predictable and more prosperous. Thank you very much. Mr President, thank you very much for presenting to us so I should really say those success stories and this success didn't happen by itself it happens through a integrated wise forward-looking vision and the necessary policies to implement the vision. I have now the pleasure and honor to call on the First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan to make his remarks. I hope that today's discussion will be a practical step in the search for new opportunities and the activation of cooperation between our countries. First of all, I would like to characterize the current economic situation in Kazakhstan. For the past 10 years Kazakhstan has been able to double its economic potential. In the absolute expression the GDP has grown from 18 billion dollars in the United States last year to 200 billion in the end of 2012. The GDP per capita has increased from 1,200 dollars in the United States to 12,000 dollars in 2012. According to the forecast in 2020, this indicator will exceed 20,000 dollars in the United States. We managed to save the macroeconomic stability of the global financial crisis and the difficult economic situation of the world. In 2012, the growth of the economy was 5%. The level of unemployment is preserved in recent years at a stable level not exceeding 5.5%. According to the estimates of specialists Kazakhstan is one of the most attractive for the investment of the CIS countries. Since 1993, more than 160 billion dollars in the United States have been spent on foreign investments of the Central Asian region. The financial potential of Kazakhstan is strengthened by the International Reserve including the National Fund which has exceeded 8 billion dollars in the United States. In addition, the country is also a member of the World Economic Forum in which Kazakhstan took the 51st place in the global competition index and moved to the 21st position with a higher level of development. The new stage of world development is associated with innovations, new knowledge and technology requires the modernization of the country's economic foundation. In this regard, since 2010 the state-run forced industrial innovation development is aimed at a large-scale diversification of the domestic economy. Today, more than 770 projects have been planned for the working places. In the past three years more than 530 projects have been implemented allowing the development of a completely new country to modernize the infrastructure. For the support of programs there are 9 free economic zones, techno parks, industrial parks and various financial and non-financial business support measures. In this regard, the state-run cooperation and cooperation have been carried out by companies and enterprises. Taking into account strategic tasks set by President Nazarbayev in the course of Kazakhstan 30 developed countries of the world by 2050, the work on modernization and transformation of the economy of Kazakhstan begins to the standards of international practice. The first step will be the transition to the principle of green economy. This is a very important point of view for the environment and natural resources so it is not an accident to choose the country instead of the international exhibition of XP-2017, the main theme of which is the energy of the future. This will allow the transition of the world technology and the green solution in the economy of our country. Moving on to the second part the direction has already been noted by certain departments, but in general there is still a significant potential to expand the cooperation and implementation of business initiatives. First of all, taking into account the geographical location at the junction of Europe and Asia, there is a significant transport-logistic potential. In the past, our region has been on the historical path from the east to the west. It is in this territory that strategic important cargoes have been used. Therefore, Kazakhstan has seriously activated the work to restore the previous transit functions of bridges between the east and the west. In these purposes, a number of important projects are carried out in the direction of the west, the east, and the north. These are transcontinental projects that open for Kazakhstan and other states of Central Asia, Caucasus, which have no exit to the sea and located in the distance of the economic exchange. In particular, we are carrying out the construction of the International Autonomous Registration of Western Europe and Western China. On the east side of the country is the project of the cargoes of the eastern gate aimed at increasing trade ties with the rapidly growing region of Southeast Asia, as well as China. On the Caspian, on the basis of the Achtal port, the project of the western gate of Kazakhstan is carried out. With the implementation of such projects, many geographical barriers can be solved. This is a big field for joint activity of the country of the region. On the other hand, a huge potential is in the agricultural sector. Today, Kazakhstan is one of the important economic centers of the world and the second in the world of exporters of flour. Taking into account the observations of global demographic processes and the structure of the population in Kazakhstan, the system has already taken a step to expand the sales base. As part of the development program of the APK until 2020, it is necessary to increase the production of eco-friendly products. These goals are planned for more than $ 27 billion in the United States until 2020. Kazakhstan is also ready for the most close cooperation in this direction. Thirdly, the potential of the trade sector is not enough. On the contrary, the Central Asia of the Caucasus, in 2019, was estimated at $ 4.7 billion in the United States, increasing by comparison to $ 1.7 billion. But this is only 4.2% of the foreign trade of Kazakhstan in general. At the same time, the trade with the countries of the Caucasus is only 0.4% of the total foreign trade of the country. As we see, the potential is large. You can activate the trade mission to implement regional business forums and the development of intergovernmental solutions. In general, taking into account the significant potential and common interests, we have something to think about. I would like to inform you that May 22 in Kazakhstan will take place in the 6th Estonian Economic Forum. The purpose of its conduct is to find solutions to the current international and regional problems with which many countries face the world. The key event of the 6th Estonian Forum will be the World and we have the honor to welcome all the participants of today's meeting at the Estonian Economic Forum. At the end, I would like to wish you a wonderful organized Baku forum of platform work. Thank you. I now call on my friend Kostin to comment on the situation and I would say as a neighbor and part of the region. Thank you very much, Professor Schwab. Ladies and gentlemen, I think as one of the leading integration group European Union is sinking deeper and deeper into the troubled waters of economic and financial crisis and more we are looking and the global business is looking for more opportunities and for the new areas of economic growth and definitely South Caucasus and Central Asia region represent one of such area. As Mr. President Aliyev mentioned over the last 10 years Azerbaijan for example and the result of economic development of Azerbaijan is extremely impressive. I think Mr. President gave a very interesting picture and comprehensive picture of this growth and I would like to congratulate him on such great achievements during his 10 years as president but also there are other countries as my colleague from Kazakhstan just mentioned and of course to a very big extent to the fact that those countries in the region who possess quite a rich gas and oil resources and other mineral resources of course they might be doing maybe better than other countries in the region though I think we all understand that the era of gas and oil is not forever and the oil should be prepared for a much more competitive market from other countries which might offer some alternative sources of energy of course the region represent as I mentioned one of the greatest opportunity for the growth but also I would like to mention that of course one of the greatest security issues of course the region is very complicated from political and military point of view you know there's neighboring countries like Afghanistan like Iran there is a threat of terrorism there is a threat of Islamic radicalism there is a problem of drug trafficking there is a problem of political stability and transition of power between countries of the region which put this security risk for the region and I think this one should be tackled very seriously if we want or if we would like to have a much more prosperous region but there's also the area of mutual cooperation I would like just to mention some of the areas one of them is coordination of the exporters strategies as I mentioned that each country is trying to benefit from oil proceeds and Azerbaijan I think is doing extremely well and have a very practical approach to this issue but also to rationalize the policy of energy expert among the countries of region I think one of the important tasks the second as my colleague already mentioned here is the transport logistic and to create really the global transport corridors which will give an extremely big boost to the economies of the regions and also I think the inter-region cooperation on trade and investment my colleague from Kazakhstan mentioned the figure on Kazakhstan I can say that for Russia the region represent only 5% of the foreign trade and most of this more than half of this actually represent our trade with Kazakhstan definitely that is not the level which Russia for example would like to see the Russian role Russia is not trying to recreate the empire as probably some of my American colleagues would like to pause it we think that it is impossible never in Russia can seriously speak about this nowadays but of course the country of the region which we are discussing now they all were part of the Soviet Union only 20 years ago and Russia definitely has vested interest in the region for a number of reasons we are of course have the problem of islamic radicalism with the problem of drug trafficking coming either from the region or through the region from Afghanistan we have other problems which directly affect Russian security and Russian stability so definitely that represent Caspian sea is another example when Russia has a direct vested interest in the region but also we think that we can all benefit from closer cooperation as I mentioned the Russian under the Soviet Union that was one economy and though over the 20 years many things changed I think there is still a lot possibility for industrial cooperation for economic cooperation and cooperation in many other areas in the region that's why we are offering a different kind of possibilities our approach is that integration with the countries of the region might have a multi-speed approach with some countries like Kazakhstan for example we already joined the custom union and we are moving toward the common economic space other countries we can offer a different maybe softer kind of cooperation starting from the lower or the smaller cooperation moving into a next stage maybe at a different speed but we are very much believe that such cooperation is needed again we don't think that Russia pose any threat to the economical political independence of the countries and though we understand the cooperation integration is difficult because of the different level of the development of the countries because of the nature of the economies we still believe that the region will benefit from cooperation both economically and not least important political from the point of political and security stability thank you thank you thank you very much Andrei now I ask Deputy First Deputy Prime Minister Otto Bayef from the Kyrgyz Republic to address this thank you very much Mr. President Professor Schaap thank you very much for excellent organization of this meeting especially I very much impressed by development of brother country of Azerbaijan to my shame it is my first trip to Baku, Azerbaijan and I was very much impressed what happening here Mr. President our personal role in this development cannot be overestimated it's not only architecture or environmentally projects which in this country yesterday I had opportunity to speak to simple people in the streets to young people, to students and there you see energy there you see optimism and there you can absorb what kind of energy this growing nation has this gives us a lot of persuasion we are proud that our brother country is doing these things we have participating in the unique forum of course Kyrgyz Republic participating in this forum and will be participating in the future forum of this type region must be more dynamic region must be more ambitious world is moving very fast and we have to move at least with it with all dynamism which our region has we have to look into the numbers and the common joint GDP of all five Central Asian countries is less than GDP of one tiny country as Singapore so we have to look into this case as a potential for the growth there is a lot of things which we can deliver there is a lot of natural resources huge human capital which still underused Kyrgyz Republic building open country our goal is to build competitive environment in politics and economy in building society and we one single priority for us in that respect would be to strengthen regional cooperation Kyrgyz Republic reach with mineral resources only proven gold reservoirs reserves contains of more than 1000 tons of gold country reach with hydro energy and our goal in the coming years is to invest infrastructure to create favorable investment climate in order to build our economy last year Kyrgyz Republic became the transit country for the region first time in many years by building two highways to China now country became transit we have to look into the geographic reality now a great neighbor which is China is bringing a lot of opportunities for the region that is why we try to link Chinese roots to the former Soviet Union countries to make our country transit we opening open sky policy in aviation last year we abolish visa for citizen of 44 countries the visa free regime now extended to almost 70 countries around the world in a division of labor in the region Kyrgyz Republic de facto became the trade hub of Central Asia the only direct import from China to Kyrgyzstan consist of 10 billion dollars which is more than country GDP which is unique situation that is why we feeling the benefits of regional trade we will be entering customs union with Kazakhstan Russia and Belarus with that goods produced in Kyrgyzstan will get access to much bigger and much stronger market we live in we live in the most dynamically developing part of the world we live in a neighborhood of three big countries one of them is the world economy and our region de facto should be benefitting out of this development however regional cooperation should be indeed as president Aleph mentioned today should be the priority for development of our region if Marco Polo would be traveling these days through the region he would be slower than in his years we have difficult borders we have problems with documentation and this is of course not natural we cannot stand without development and we will develop it let's do it together thank you thank you deputy prime minister may I now call on minister Gildas the minister of energy and natural resources of Turkey thank you for your participation for the organization it is a very good organization that is very good for Azerbaijan of course we are talking about important business opportunities we need to do general analysis of big projects that cannot be separated from international relations economy is global but policies are international countries international policies they can do as much as they want and global crisis has a lot of problems one of them is the submarines in those countries the submarines are very small at the same time it is more important for countries that are trying to grow like Turkey in the last 10 years Turkey has made three times the energy sector has made it two times and it has strengthened this record for every country and with many countries it has the opportunity to develop many projects so with countries that can continue and we can move forward as much as we need today in Turkey in the Caribbean while developing the South two countries are developing with Azerbaijan in a way that is far away from political comments Iran and Turkey are working together right now we do not approve the regime in Syria but we support electricity we do not approve the will of the south but we give electricity right now and we see more increase with political interests and Turkey especially using advantages to develop very serious projects will continue with Baku Tiflis Ceyhan Han Petrol Board we will open the world markets and as the president said with the railway project the agreement is a guarantee we with Europe with the production points a serious bridge this advantage from the geography Turkey with all positive attitudes will continue to contribute to the development of the region and Turkey while experiencing this change 2023 the 2030 goals will end it seems on the one hand with a new energy source to meet its needs according to the data still oil about natural gas and coal continues a country in production countries especially from the energy sector while turning to other sectors Turkey does not have these local sources oil and natural gas sources other sectors from the energy sector finance countries especially in the geography the big goals that country's development larger than the budget that is more than the domestic budget more than the domestic budget more than this domestic budget as always love the economy love the countries that provide the land love the countries that provide the law so all these balance to Turkey continue to grow we for the Istanbul Bazaar we invite all our guests we invite all our friends from this hall and I thank Mr. President Mr. President Mr. President Mr. President thank you very much Minister Yildiz now let's hear from the audience and I may call first on professor Viktor Halberstadt who has been a long-term producer of many companies and governments and Viktor I would suggest since Andrei Kostin mentioned also the European Union as an important neighbor and interested party of the region to provide us with your views in addition to your reaction of the future relationship of the European Union the potential this region represents for the European Union thank you Klaus that's very kind I thought I would be one day without European Union thank you Andrei frankly as I said to you Mr. President we are going through difficult times when you go through difficult times in a family you usually do not want to discuss that in a room like this so let me first react to what I have heard this morning in fact I'm stunned I was looking at the numbers preparing this meeting I was listening to you Mr. President last night I was hearing to the distinguished excellencies talking about the achievements in the region and then I had a flashback looking at the title of this event and Klaus you may have the similar flashback it says it's a dialogue on the future of the South Caucasus and Central Asia and included is Turkey and I my flashback is to 20 years ago I don't know the exact year but I think it's 20 years ago that we had a World Economic Forum meeting in Istanbul which was really the first effort to try to include not only talking about Turkey talking about the larger region and in fact people looked at us as if it was kind of strange that we were trying to look at the integration of the larger region and the potential for cooperation in this region and I'm very pleasantly surprised to hear that all of you now find this an entirely normal template so to say to think about the issues going forward I remember what I said in the discussion in Istanbul which was basically I felt that Turkey was a gateway to Europe for the Asians and that Turkey, Istanbul was also a gateway for the Europeans today I would enlarge that concept and say where we are here in the South Caucasus, Central Asia this is the gateway both for the Europeans and for the Asians I have two questions one for the medium term and one for the long term and they were touched upon both by President Aliyev and by Minister Kostin there's a real issue of the risk profile of this region of the individual countries and of the risk profile you referred Mr. President to transformation to the non-oil GDP so to say to use a short term now leaving aside the global economy and what may happen in the global economy slow down or a pickup of growth in the next few years and leaving aside price fluctuations for commodities especially for energy commodities what are the specifics of the transformation for your country and for the region this question equally applies to the others because there must be specific plans to really dramatically change the oil dependence or the energy dependence of the region because as Andre Kostin rightly said there's an end to oil and gas or you phrased it slightly different Andre so that's my first question my second one is more about the long term which brings me then close to the European Union also talking about cooperation in this region talking about the future what model are we talking about what do you have in mind is it not important to start talking early on not deciding but start talking early on about what kind of integration you are willing to do what kind of coordination you are willing to engage in what kind of customs union what kind of open labour markets what kind of financial open markets because eventually even after you have settled agreements on energy etc there needs to be an overall concept and there will be a need to choose and in that choice for cooperation and integration you will run into the issue which brings me to the European Union of sovereignty how much sovereignty is a nation willing to transfer to further its economic and political and security future obviously that is the question which the European countries the European Union member states are are struggling with and to end on an optimistic note we are struggling with it because we really want to achieve that integration and the struggle is between is about the model of integration the struggle is about the degree of sovereignty which we want to transfer but the struggle is not about the question that further integration and further coordination and further sovereignty necessary conditions for the well-being of these nations going forward thank you and I'm sure that we would all like to hear President Aliyev's first opinion about it just coming back to Europe I I published just three months ago a small booklet which is entitled the Renaissance of Europe so you may see my own let's say opinion about the future of Europe you may download it I'm not going into it I think we are all interested now to hear the President to answer the questions of Viktor Halberstadt but you may download it from the World Economic Forum's website Mr. President I'd like to say once again that for our government diversification is a number one priority for at least last 10 years because in the beginning of independence in order to attract investments we needed to present our energy potential we needed to create very preferable conditions for investors to feel themselves comfortably in Azerbaijan but we clearly realize that only development will not allow us to transform and will not create jobs because energy sector does not create a lot of jobs and will not allow us to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor therefore we adopted two regional development programs in 2004 and in 2009 the main objective of which was diversification and investments in infrastructure and stimulation of the private sector of course the regulations the liberal reforms and investment climate helped us to achieve this goal and I can tell you that one of the best statistic data about Azerbaijan is reduction of poverty reduction of unemployment and increase of the non-energy sector which we had last year was close to 10% growth and in the coming years diversification process will go I'm sure very successfully because we have a program Azerbaijan 2020 which is a comprehensive very precise program about what should be done before 2020 and the target is to double non-energy GDP in the coming 8-9 years the sectors which we concentrate as I said is information communication technologies also agriculture services and the reduction of dependence on energy factor is one of the priorities at the same time we clearly understand that energy factor will dominate not only economic development of Azerbaijan but also regional cooperation here because this is a driving force coming to second point with respect to integration and how it correlates with sovereignty of course at this panel we have representatives of the countries which have their own choice of development we have of course European Union and as an example of integration we have now customs union which some countries are members of and also there are countries which now in the process of integration and assessment of the future integration plans as far as balance between integration and sovereignty is concerned as far as Azerbaijan is concerned for us sovereignty is undisputed substance 100% sovereignty this is a must and probably this comes from our past because for centuries Azerbaijan empires countries and only 21 years of independence therefore for us independence political and economic is a prerequisite for future development and look at today's Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan which was 30, 40 or 50 years ago it's day and night therefore independence brought not only the feeling of national dignity and pride but also day to day improvement in the living conditions of the country but that doesn't mean that we would prefer just to observe what's happening around us no we are participating actively in the regional cooperation project we initiate most of the regional cooperation project and we see the benefits therefore I think there are the boundaries for cooperation which do not cross these boundaries towards reduction of sovereignty or granting part of your economic sovereignty to some unions or some structures which are above the state level and I think that we managed to find the proper balance between regional cooperation integration and of course sovereignty and protecting our own choice so any of the panel members who would like to comment Minister of course and in which coordination we can provide this the producers in the international meetings the consumers of the countries do not give their projections in time and the consumers generally for the producers do not make their investments in time as a matter of fact these projects are really being created how there is death next to life the value of life is the consumers and producers need each other because Turkey knows this and thinks about it these two structures continue to be positive in coordination we are not the same we are acting in the right way these projects will be possible so the producers and consumers until they are convinced until they meet this coordination is provided so which country especially is fighting this as you know there is a rule increase the energy of those countries time to time increase the energy of those countries in the European Union with certain purposes and economic cooperation countries who have come together while developing international energy projects and policies they know that's why they can develop projects with different countries if the European Union had a whole reflection Nabucco project would have been more alive before because these demands are not met two brother countries Azerbaijan and Turkey in the European Union the problem of low security of natural gas has developed we need to do this in many projects and I believe we will be successful if you want to comment just few words I think on policy of oil proceeds and diversification I think Azerbaijan there are some countries in the world who are just saving for next generations I don't think that we believe that future generations will be living much worse than us there are other countries who are spending a lot building luxury things like air conditions football stadiums or some other things which is practically useless today saving enough to provide macroeconomic stability and investing in the future which also provide the diversification for the future I think that the only approach which each oil exporter should follow nowadays and I hope Russia also is doing the same now as integration I think we are talking about a quite initial stage of integration there are some high level of integration with a lot of political or other sovereignty to be delegated to some common borders like we have in Europe or some others but we are talking about the initial stage about particularly more integration and trade and investment maybe in financial sector that's I think which is needed for the region Thank you I would like to follow up this question of sovereignty and interdependence necessary structures to govern interdependence Deputy Prime Minister Thank you Again, from two hours I will start with the diversification I talked about my speech how important is the diversification and the preliminary came from the topic of oil you understand that Kazakhstan is very rich with oil resources and especially in the near future it will increase and that's why it's important for us about diversification that's why Mr. Kostnichas talked about the accumulation of Kazakhstan we are directing our funds to the projects that are needed for the diversification during crisis of the 8th and 9th we invested in the banking sector 10 billion dollars to get them out because the funding of the banks on the European side was already absent and we had to support the economy and we had to withdraw and we had to invest in the economy in this regard we, in addition to what I said about the program of industrialization of the economy now the program of support of the small and medium business until 2020 as soon as we stopped making cheap money I think it's a characteristic for all countries of the CIS the financing for the credit for the business is very expensive and we began to subsidize so that they could invest in the economy and that's why here in this issue we are moving towards the right path regarding the second part integration or sovereignty but we need to understand when we talk about integration we immediately increase the question about how much sovereignty we lose or we don't talk about integration and now there was a question about the CIS about the fact that we are not we are not going to the union we are going to the economic space only last year Kazakhstan, for example, never produced electronics and in such a large amount you know, the territory is huge and the market is very small just last year we put thousands of TVs in Russia we didn't have that that is, the market opened for us and we began to raise those industries that were not characteristic for Kazakhstan that's why we are a protector of such a kind of integration and we don't think that when we integrate in such a way we lose something there is something somewhere but we probably buy more Thank you Just little remarks about integration sovereignty as well as way forward unfortunately very often we meet our colleagues from the region in Washington, in Brussels elsewhere to talk to each other that is why the fora like that when we meet in the region when we see a lot of people which are interesting in the region extremely important for example, Astana, Almaty, Bishkek could be very important places where we can meet again in that respect we can think on how to internalize very interesting process which we are facing today and how to make a regular meeting of the type which we are facing now with intellectuals with politicians to be in one room and to speak honestly to each other through this process we believe we will build better understanding a lot of concerns will be smoothed away and maybe as a result of today's meeting we can think of the way forward what we have to do together in order to make our region more integrated Deputy Prime Ministers I just can on behalf of the forum expressive views that this should be a starting point and we always feel is the first step to create cooperation is dialogue and we start the dialogue very much today now how we conduct the dialogue I would like to ask before doing so I would like to do two things first I would like to ask Mr. Carr Professor Carr just in one minute or two minutes to react to this issue of do we need structures in order to guarantee cooperation I'm no expert to speak on this question and the problem is we're talking about a region which hasn't existed as a region for hundreds of years so there are no experts everyone's feeling their way and there are no clear answers to these questions but what Deputy Minister Otter Bayef said is extremely important it seems to me that there be vehicles for the region as a whole to communicate with itself now there is a question of who is the region and I think that needs some clarity certainly the three sovereign states of the caucuses constitute a if you will region within a region certainly the five former republics of the USSR constitute a region within the region but I would add Afghanistan which for 2,000 years has been intimately part of this of these regions interacting with them and tied with them economically and culturally in so many ways so first there's the question of who second is the question of who else I would submit that we are rich in organizations that enable states of this region alone and together to communicate with others and impoverished in organizations in which just the states of the region exist within Central Asia in the 1990s there was the Central Asia Union it was a surprisingly successful constructive enterprise if you check the history of it I'm not going to go into it here it was closed down and submerged in another entity that we have discussed this morning I'm not sure that that obviated the need for a platform of discussion within Central Asia including Afghanistan alone and between them the states of the caucuses so this need not be a state based or operation it can be government and business or business and government but the need for internal dialogue without the external powers all external powers including without United States without China without Russia without India without Europe let them speak among themselves and come to their own views and then let them talk with the external forces thank you professor Kar President Aliyev we come to the conclusion if you would summarize in one minute what is the most important message coming out of this session for you I think that one of the most important message should be that we all need cooperation and predictability in the region and we need stability and we need to expand our economic and political ties because we are interrelated not only because we lived in one country for many decades but because development of our region of Central Asia caucuses successful development can be in close cooperation and it's not just words and we already did quite a lot in order to develop regional cooperation projects for instance as far as Azerbaijan is concerned energy transportation and relations in trade area helped us to develop without regional cooperation we wouldn't have been able to export our hydrocarbons without close regional cooperation we wouldn't be able to become a transit country for our neighbors and friends across the Caspian so regional cooperation must be strengthened and each country should determine the level of cooperation and integration itself and I think that there should not be a confrontation between integration and cooperation if each country determines for itself the level of how much it want to be integrated and participate in various structures and others would you know recognize it's right I think then we will have good progress thank you president thank you distinguished members of the panel may I now ask my colleague Borger Brande managing director of the World Economic Forum to enlighten us about the next hours which we will spend together thank you professor Schwab Mr President Excellencies ladies and gentlemen it's not so easy to enlighten after such very distinguished panel also then sharing directions and also offering visions for enhanced economic cooperation in such very important region we all watched the film at the beginning where we saw that the scope is huge with increased trade and economic cooperation we can increase the GDP in the region by 100% in 10 years and I think also the deputy prime minister of Kyrgyzstan laid out the wish with referring to Marco Polo he had traveled today along the Silk Road there would be more bureaucracy and difficulties when it comes to passing borders and doing trade than it was years ago so we will take a very practical look at a strategic one on how we can enhance cooperation and also deepen economic cooperation in the region in the coming hours so at 11 o'clock we will start and continue the strategic dialogue in four different breakout groups all our distinguished participants can then choose the relevant group for you we will have entrepreneurship and human capital as one group we will have trade and natural resources as another one we will also have trade and supply chains as a third one and also long-term investments as the fourth all these breakout groups are off the record so no tweeting they are based on Chatham House rules we will have a luncheon next door that is based on Chatham House rules as a country as a Bajon we know that as a Bajon is strategically located as a bridge between South Caucasus and also Central Asia historically and geographically we will elaborate on that in the afternoon after the morning breakout groups where we look at the challenges and opportunities we will have more a look at how to walk the talk what are the real action points needed to enhance economic integration at five o'clock we will all gather hair again and then share the action points but also the challenges and opportunities and the outcomes of today's discussions and later on we will have a dinner in the presence of the president and all the public figures prime ministers vice prime ministers and ministers where we will then elaborate and also look how can we make sure that this is a real start of a real process because what the World Economic Forum is inviting to her is to develop real scenarios until 2030 when it comes to making sure that we see this integration and enhanced cooperation taking place in the region so we'll all have a very exciting day it's gonna be hard work but I think also the price is there it is increased collaboration and economic growth and prosperity in the region and the world is at stake thank you thank you and on behalf of all the participants I would like to thank you Mr. President again for the hospitality for making this hopefully important process possible and the distinguished panelists for having shared with us so I wish you a very good day thank you again very much