These steps aimed at expanding bilateral cooperation in tourism were discussed at a meeting of Vice Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region Alexei Orlov with Chairman of Azerbaijan's State Tourism Agency Fuad Naghiyev held within the VII International Tourism Forum "The Big Urals-2019".

Fuad Naghiyev highly praised the potential of the city of Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk Region in tourism industry. "Your region has the enormous potential in the sphere of tourism. We came to find mechanisms for increasing mutual tourist traffic. We are ready to position the Urals in our country as an interesting route to visit and consider the possibility of opening a representative office here. Azerbaijan is looking forward to the arrival of Russian tourists. There is necessary infrastructure and no language barrier for them in our country," Naghiyev said adding that not a single Russian-language school was shut down in Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Alexey Orlov thanked the guests for initiating the open partnership dialogue. Having emphasized close business and friendly relations established between the Sverdlovsk Region and Azerbaijan, he spoke about the plans to develop partnership contacts with Azerbaijan.

"At present, a draft agreement on cooperation between the Sverdlovsk Region and the Azerbaijani government for the next 10 years has been jointly developed. It opens the door to many initiatives including conducting joint events and developing tourism. We believe that this industry will continue to grow and become a full-fledged sector of the economy," said Alexei Orlov.

According to the Azerbaijani side, starting from July, Irkutsk Airlines airline company begins to make regular flights from Yekaterinburg to Baku twice a week, which will increase the total number of the flights to three times in a week.

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