Azerbaijan makes contribution in EITI development for 10 years

Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 26 / Trend E. Ismayilov / Azerbaijan has made its contribution in the development of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) for 10 years, head of EITI international secretariat Jonas Moberg said at a conference in Baku on Thursday devoted to the tenth anniversary of Azerbaijan's accession to the initiative. "The main goal of the initiative is to ensure transparency and to provide the public with information on revenues from implementing the projects in the mining industry," he said. "Azerbaijan has contributed to the development of the initiative." Head of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) Shahmar Movsumov spoke about the achievements of Azerbaijan over the past 10 years and expressed his confidence in the success of the initiative development for the next decade. According to him, the new standards within the initiative will give even more transparency and more detailed and necessary information on the projects in the mining industry. Azerbaijan was the first country which became an EITI full member among 25 candidate countries, by confirming the full application of the principles and criteria of the initiative. This status is confirmed by EITI Board at the fourth International Conference, held within EITI in Doha (Qatar) on February 16-18, 2009. EITI was announced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in September 2002 at the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Its purpose was to achieve transparency of the information about mining companies' payments to the governments of the countries having rich natural resources and the revenues received by the governments from these companies. Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az