China working with Azerbaijan on belt and road transport route even as Baku restricts investment
- China has used Azerbaijan’s ongoing bilateral negotiations on its World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership to open up access for belt and road projects
- The main project involving Azerbaijan is the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, a land transport network stretching from China and Southeast Asia to Europe
China is actively pursuing investment in Azerbaijan through the Belt and Road Initiative to take advantage of its strategic position in central Asia, experts said, even as Baku maintains rigid limits on foreign capital inflows, thwarting Chinese efforts to invest in the service sector.
Rather than seeking a purely export-import trade deal, China has been seeking market access commitments from other belt and road countries seeking to join the WTO since announcing its plan to grow global trade in 2013, according to international trade lawyer Julien Chaisse.
The Azerbaijani government is seen to be slow walking its efforts to join the WTO so that it can maintain barriers that safeguard the state-supported monopolies that control the country’s underdeveloped service sector, particularly financial and business services, as well as telecommunications.
The basic idea is that China is using the WTO accession process to leverage interest towards the Belt and Road Initiative to obtain greater commitments from existing and potential [belt and road] nations
Chaisse, who has handled some negotiations for Azerbaijan, said China’s demands for market access were one of the stumbling blocks for Azerbaijan, even though the requests did not go against WTO rules.