President Ilham Aliyev met with heads of leading German companies

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has held a meeting with heads of leading German companies in Berlin, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting AzerTac.

The head of state addressed the event.

“Among our main future plans, of course, is the reconstruction of liberated areas of Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, which were under occupation for almost 30 years. Now the territory of the size of Lebanon is totally in ruins,” noted Ilham Aliyev.

“So, we already started the state program, which is called the Big Return. We elaborated already a program. We have already implemented the first pilot project and resettled more than 400 former refugees within only one year and a half after the war ended. And our plan is to resettle hundreds of thousands of former refugees. Because, as a result of Armenian occupation, we had more than 1 million internally displaced people and people who became refugees,” the head of state noted.

The Big Return program will require a lot of resources, said the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

“We’re planning to implement projects based on absolutely new modern standards. We already announced Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur as green energy zone. There’ll be only renewable sources of energy, which will not only feed the demands of people and industry but also will be very useful for the rest of the country,” the head of state underlined.

“The potential of renewable sources of wind and solar in Azerbaijan is close to 200 gigawatts. So, now we’re working already not only to continue to attract foreign investors but also to provide necessary transmission capabilities to export this volume,” President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with heads of Germany’s leading companies in Berlin.

“We have also a plan to transform Nakhchivan into a green energy zone, along with Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur. There is a big potential for hydropower station building in Nakhchivan,” President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with heads of Germany’s leading companies in Berlin.

“We will have some developments with respect to the construction of the 500-megawatt solar power station. At the same time, a traditional power station in Nakhchivan is also more than welcome because Nakhchivan has great export potential. Because it borders Turkey and Iran, and in both countries there is a growing demand for electric energy,” the head of state noted.

The meeting saw discussions on economic cooperation, including in the areas of industry, transport, energy, agriculture, education, technologies and others.