Baku, December 2, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has reviewed “BakuTel-2014” 20th Azerbaijan International Telecommunications and Information Technologies Exhibition.

Minister of Communications and High Technologies Ali Abbasov informed the head of state of the exhibition. It was said that apart from local companies, this year`s exhibition brings together 250 companies from 23 countries. They include leading information and communication technologies companies, Azerbaijani mobile operators, internet providers, system integrators and famous brand distributors.

Minister Ali Abbasov informed President Ilham Aliyev that Azerbaijan`s national pavilion was installed at the exhibition for the second year. The national pavilion, which reflects the work carried out by the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies in recent years and plans related to the development of the ICT industry, caused great interest among visitors.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed a model of the National Nuclear Research Centre.

The exhibition also highlights preparations for Baku-2015 European Games.

The United Kingdom, Iran, Italy, Canada, Israel, Turkey, Estonia and other countries offer their interesting and innovative projects and ICT products at this year`s event.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed other pavilions.

The head of state stopped by the pavilion of “Delta Telekom” LLC. It was said that one of the region`s largest telecommunication operators, “Delta Telekom” offers high quality services on the telecommunication and information technologies market.

Then President Ilham Aliyev attended a ceremony of signing an agreement between “Azercosmos” OJC, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan, and French Airbus Defence and Space company. Under this strategic cooperation agreement, “Azercosmos” took over the rights to operate and commercialize the SPOT 7 high resolution (1.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellite, which was successfully launched on June 30, 2014 and is renamed Azersky. The head of state commenced commercial operation of Azersky by acquiring the first symbolic image from the satellite. The long term strategic cooperation between two parties also includes joint operations of Azersky of Azercosmos and the SPOT 6 high resolution (1.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellite of Airbus Defence and Space in a constellation to provide superior service. Moreover, the ground segment to be constructed will allow Azercosmos to access images acquired from Pléiades 1A and 1B, very high resolution (0.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellites commercialized by Airbus Defence and Space. Moreover, the ground segment to be constructed will allow Azercosmos to access images acquired from Pléiades 1A and 1B, very high resolution (0.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellites commercialized by Airbus Defence and Space. This satellite constellation opens up opportunities for many applications, providing the latest images within an unprecedented time frame. The combined acquisition capacity of Azersky and SPOT 6 is equal to six million square kilometres per day – an area ten times the size of France. This means that every day, every point on the globe can be viewed in high-resolution by the Azersky and SPOT 6 satellites.

The head of state then reviewed stands of Israeli companies. PineApp LTD offers comprehensive email security, email archiving and web filtering solutions that are available as hardware or software. Fourteen Israeli companies participate in this year`s exhibition.

President Ilham Aliyev also visited the United Kingdom`s pavilion. Seven British companies demonstrate their cutting edge ICT products.

The head of state reviewed the pavilion of Intel, one of the major partners of the exhibition.

The President then visited Turkey`s pavilion. It was said that Turkey is one of the active participants of the exhibition. Sixteen Turkish companies attend this year`s event.

The head of state also reviewed the pavilion of Sinam LLC.

President Ilham Aliyev was interviewed by Euronews channel.

- Mr President, how would you evaluate the importance of this contract from the perspective of implementation of innovative technologies?

- This is a very important day for us because the signing of this contract opens a lot of opportunities for Azerbaijan to develop its space industry. As you know, we are implementing the policy of diversification of our economy, and this policy is successful. ICT and space technologies are one of the main priorities for us. As you probably know we already launched the first telecommunication satellite, and this is the second one. So the process will continue and it opens a lot of opportunities from the point of view of technology, development, business, education. At the same time, this satellite will allow us to evaluate, in more details, our opportunities in agriculture, also in emergency situations, in different areas of our life. So I highly value this contract. And it is also a good example of international cooperation on bilateral level between France and Azerbaijan because this project was supported by the presidents. It is also a sign of good cooperation between Azercosmos and Airbus.

- Mr. President, as you would agree, nowadays Bakutel gathers many telecommunication giants under its umbrella. What should be the next priority for such a high profile specialized event?

- Bakutel already has a great history. We have this exhibition for twenty years. It already shows that from the point of view of ICT development Azerbaijan became one of the centers of the region. As you know we are the center of the region from the point of view of oil and gas development, and oil and gas infrastructure. But we decided several years ago to transform economy from oil economy to non-oil economy. Transformation is very successful. We implement the policy of transforming the black gold, which is oil, to human gold – human capital. Therefore Bakutel opens a lot of opportunities for companies to work in Azerbaijan, to take advantage of the growing economy of Azerbaijan. At the same time, it allows us to be part of modern, international, technological development, and plus it is education because thousands of young Azerbaijanis have been trained here working in different international companies and attending educational courses. So this has a lot of positive impacts on the development of the country, its modernization and successful future.