How Baku advances post-oil economic strategy - key takeaways from Azerbaijani President |
As a yearly tradition, President Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to local TV channels. As we step into a new year, we can say that a new economic geometry is emerging in Azerbaijan. Energy, transit, and industry are being folded into a single strategic axis, by design, not accident. The aim is to outgrow hydrocarbons without forfeiting energy primacy, to turn geography into bargaining power, and to fuse green electricity with industrial heft through a recalibrated partnership with China. Renewables, manufacturing localisation, and the Middle Corridor are no longer adjacent policies; they are mutually reinforcing parts of a single development model.
That logic shaped the recent high-level interview itself. The range of questions and their density forced repeated returns to the same economic terrain. But each pass sharpened the picture. Familiar themes were revisited from different angles, with successive answers adding depth rather than repetition.
Read as a whole, the responses form a connected argument. Diversification, clean energy, and transit are not being pursued in isolation but welded into a strategy meant to future-proof growth and recast Azerbaijan as both a green-energy node and a regional conduit in a more crowded global economy.
The core claims of that strategy merit closer examination, in sequence.
The comprehensive strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and China is proving to be a catalytic force in turning President Ilham Aliyev’s ambitious vision for economic diversification into tangible, large-scale projects, especially in renewable energy and industrial modernization.
“I believe that one of the events of great importance is our strategic partnership with China. Last year, during my state visit to China, a Joint Statement on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was signed, and this can also be considered a great success. Because China is one of the leading countries in the world, and this political framework, political platform, of course, can be viewed as evidence of our........