EITI to Be Discussed in Almaty

Trend News Agency, March 19, 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku/ Trend , corr U. Ismayilova /Ingilab Ahmadov, the Chief of the Public Finance Monitoring Centre (PFMC), has stated today that the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia is expected to be viewed during the regional conference of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of the EITI member-states to be held in Almaty on March 26-27.

The first regional conference to ensure transparency in extractive industry of the six member-states were held in Tbilisi in 2006. During this conference, the delegates decided to hold the next one in Kazakhstan’s former capital, Almaty.

The objective of the coalition is to form an active dialogue and exchange of experiences to ensure transparency within extractive industry. According to Mr. Ahmadov, the six member-states are on different levels in implementing the given initiative, with Azerbaijan taking the lead in this process. In Russia, for example, the project is not supported at a governmental level and with other countries, the initiative is slowly developing.
"As far back as in 2003, Azerbaijan has expressed its wish to participate in EITI, when the British Prime-Minister, Tony, Blair had put forward an initiative on ensure transparency in extractive industry," said Mr. Ahmadov. During the forthcoming event to be held in Almaty, Azerbaijan will be represented by Ingilab Ahmadov and Mehriban Vazir, representatives of the Soros Foundation to Azerbaijan.