Azerbaijan Republic held a seminar on market reforms for energy sector

A two-day seminar was held to learn the international practice of introducing the competition-based liberal market model in the electric power industry and determine the market reforms for energy sector in Azerbaijan, the scope of support by the World Bank to this process and the next steps. At the seminar held with the participation of the staff of Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of the Republic of Turkey, the experts from Peru and Romania, as well as the specialists of the World Bank Group, Elnur Soltanov, the deputy Minister of Energy and Sebastian Molineus, the World Bank Regional Director for the South Caucasus made an opening speech.

On the first day of seminar, the reforms to be made in the energy sector of Azerbaijan, transition to the liberal market relations, expansion of the use of renewable energy sources and the work done in the field of energy efficiency, and the targets set were presented and the wide range of questions addressed by the seminar participants were answered. Moreover, the samples of international practice on the reforms of energy sector, expansion of the share of renewable energy sources in the liberalized markets and the involvement of private investors to the development of field from the European, Central Asian and South American countries were reviewed.

On the second day of seminar, the samples of reforms made by Uzbekistan, Spain, Romania and Peru were presented in details and put on a roundtable. In addition, the practices of expanding the use of renewable energy in the energy markets operating within the liberal market relations throughout the world and impacts of such trend on the market were analysed.