Baku, December 16 (AZERTAC). Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu mentioned the energy and communication projects jointly implemented with Azerbaijan at the 29th Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) held in Yerevan on December 12, 2013.

Ahmet Davudoglu said, “We have a joint Model Highway Initiative (MHI) Project on Baku-Tbilisi-Batumi-Trabzon with Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Working Group of the MHI has been established and its Rules of Procedure have been adopted”.

Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan have jointly undertaken the construction of a modern railway linking the city of Kars in Turkey with Tbilisi and Baku. This railway connection, part of a planned network which will connect Beijing with London, will facilitate the movement of passengers and goods and thus constitute a strategic component of energy and transport corridors linking the Caspian basin to Black Sea and further to Europe. Thanks to that Project more than 1,5 million passengers and 6 million tons of freight per year will be carried at the first stage, Turkish FM added.

According to Davudoglu, boosting intra-BSEC trade should be seen as a matter of high priority and Turkey should redouble their efforts in this direction. Despite the great potential of Turkey, with a population of more than 330 million people and with an area of nearly 20 million square kilometers, intra-BSEC trade volume amounts to only around 300 billion US Dollars. In a region representing almost 8% of the world economy, with a total GDP of 3.4 trillion US Dollars, it is clear that there is a vast scope for further steps in this area.