South Caucasus Developments
South Caucasus Developments
Developments in the Caucasus.?Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev?held talks?in Baku, where they discussed bilateral relations and issues related to the South Caucasus region. A day earlier, Aliyev?met with?Russian presidential aide Igor Levitin to talk about cooperation on transport projects, including the North-South International Transport Corridor and the Zangezur corridor, which could connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan. Meanwhile, Armenia’s parliamentary speaker?said?his country reached an understanding with Baku on unblocking transport routes in the region.
President Ilham Aliyev and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in an expanded format?- VIDEO
On June 13, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in an expanded format.
Day.Az?Welcoming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President?Ilham Aliyev?said:
- We are very pleased with your state visit. I am glad that you are paying a visit to Azerbaijan in a short time after the presidential election. Once again, I congratulate you on your victory. I wish you continued success. I am confident that in the coming years, our friendship and fraternal relations will be, as always, at a high level.
Today, during a one-on-one meeting, we discussed many issues. This will now be continued by our delegations. Turkish-Azerbaijani unity and brotherhood is an international factor, a factor of stability, development and security. The trust shown to you by the Turkish people during the presidential elections is a high appreciation of your many years of service to the Turkish people. You know that you are very much loved in Azerbaijan. You are our dear guest.
I also want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the new members of the Government. I know many of them. Our ministers and other high-level officials met yesterday. These contacts continue today. As always, our meetings sum up the results of the work done and at the same time draw up a roadmap for the things ahead. I am sure that this will be the case during this visit. Once again, welcome.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan?said:
- Dear Mr. President, dear Brother.
Distinguished members of the delegation.
On my own behalf and on behalf of my delegation, I welcome you with the most sincere feelings. After being re-elected president by the will of our people, we traditionally first visited Northern Cyprus, immediately after that we arrived in Baku and are now with you. On my own behalf and on behalf of my delegation, I would like to express my special heartfelt thanks for the hospitality provided.
The Turkish-Azerbaijani brotherhood is followed with envy all over the world. The last example of this we saw was during the earthquake that occurred in Turkey. The government and people of Azerbaijan shared our grief and immediately sent the train to the earthquake zone. On my own behalf and on behalf of my people, I would like to once again thank all the citizens of Azerbaijan, whose hearts beat in unison with us.
We are determined to develop our relations, which have reached the level of alliance thanks to the Shusha Declaration, in all areas. We are ready to open our Consulate General in Shusha at any time. Hakan Bey, if our Consulate General in Shusha, Inshallah, can be opened at any time without delay, then this, of course, will again become a separate message to the whole world, including Armenia.
Our Education Foundation, with the support of Azerbaijani structures, continues its activities in the educational sphere. Inshallah, next year we plan to commission a new educational building of our school.
Just now, at a one-on-one meeting with my dear brother, we discussed, in particular, the Middle Corridor passing through the Caspian Sea, and it will be useful to discuss the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line in this context.
President Ilham Aliyev and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in an expanded format - VIDEO (day.az)
Yerevan reported on the achievement of mutual understanding with Baku on the issues of communications in the region
Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan noted that there are still technical issues that should be clarified
YEREVAN, June 13. /TASS/. Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached an understanding on the issue of unblocking regional communications, but technical issues remain that should be clarified. This was stated at a briefing by the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan.
"There is mutual understanding on common issues [of unblocking communications], the existing problems are of a technical nature, what kind of cargo on which route < ... >. We are in favor of unblocking all roads," he said.
A working group of deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation is engaged in unblocking regional communications. Its last meeting was held on June 2 in Moscow. According to the Armenian government, a common understanding was reached on the implementation of concrete steps to restore and organize railway communication along the Yeraskh - Julfa - Meghri - Horadiz route.
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The Hill: How Biden’s big investments spurred a factory boom
BY?TOBIAS BURNS -?- 06/13/23
A surge in manufacturing construction across the country is grabbing the attention of economists and workers on the ground as legislative efforts to reinvigorate the U.S. industrial base are bearing fruit.
Experts say these changes have been long-awaited, and they represent a watershed moment for U.S. heavy industry and a shift toward more environmentally friendly methods of production amid an ongoing climate emergency.
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“We waited for so long to have these kinds of initiatives,” Miki Banu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told The Hill. “This is probably the first time in my life when I’ve seen so many resources become available, which are able to let us put our ideas into practice.”
Annual spending on manufacturing construction held somewhat steady during the 2010s, generally keeping within the range of $50 billion to $80 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Levels were lower and the range of spending tighter in the decade before.
But following the passage of three large-scale economic packages loaded with tax incentives and direct funding for industrial projects and operations, investment in manufacturing construction?shot up to $189 billion in April?on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than doubling pre-pandemic levels.
Factory boom sets off hiring frenzy
According to new?experimental data?from the Census Bureau, the construction build-out has happened especially fast in the Mountain division of the West region in the country, which includes states like Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The South Central divisions, which is where the most manufacturing construction happens in the U.S., have also seen a marked rise.
Construction workers say there is more manufacturing activity happening in these regions than they’re currently prepared to handle.
“Honest to goodness, [the top of my agenda] is finding and training qualified manpower, because that’s what’s needed. We don’t have enough,” Courtenay Eichhorst, president of the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council, told The Hill.
“If somebody tells me they need a welder who can do X, Y and Z right now in the state of New Mexico, everybody that has those qualifications is already working.”
Eichhorst said he was working to meet the demands of companies including Facebook and Intel, as well the Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.
Big federal investments are paying off
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law along with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and CHIPS and Science Act, both passed in 2022, are the main drivers behind the construction boom, economists say.
A portfolio of?21 manufacturing and recycling projects for the battery industry funded by $2.8 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Department of Energy shows the kinds of facilities that are being primed for additional capital expenditures.
“The Inflation Reduction Act’s advanced manufacturing tax incentives provide a long-term investment signal for critical mineral processing and battery production, and the structure of the [IRA’s] tax credits for electric vehicles depends on domestic assembly and domestic batteries,” Trevor Higgins, a vice president at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, testified to Congress earlier this year.
The incentives to reshape industrial production and operation in the U.S. included in the various legislative packages go beyond plant construction and are aimed at retrofitting existing technology pipelines and processes to make them better for the environment.
Heating and cooling systems in commercial and residential buildings that eliminate natural gas are one such area of focus. Technicians and construction workers who can help building owners secure federal rebates offered in the IRA are also in critically high demand.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has a huge part that focuses on heat pump systems,” Joan Baker, the political affairs director of the United Association Local 412 plumbers and pipefitters union in New Mexico, told The Hill.
“As far as heating, cooling and ventilation technicians go, we in New Mexico have been in a?pinch for those particular trades,” Baker said.
Domestic manufacturing plays key foreign policy role
Initiatives to reshore U.S. manufacturing jobs in the wake of geopolitical tensions fanned by the coronavirus pandemic have been?a key focus?for senior Biden administration officials.
This has been especially true for the semiconductor industry, which experienced a major shortage following the pandemic. The semiconductor industry’s concentration in traditional East Asian manufacturing hubs like Taiwan helped to spur the passage of the CHIPS Act over concerns about the territorial ambitions of China, the U.S.’s main economic rival.
But even larger-scale trends in the international economy and growing dissatisfaction with global trade may be providing tailwinds to the U.S. construction manufacturing bonanza.
A speech in April by national security adviser Jake Sullivan revisited the theme of “industrial policy” — a term that went out of fashion in the 1990s as free trade agreements starting with NAFTA and culminating in the World Trade Organization (WTO) stepped into the limelight.
“We are not walking away from the WTO, but the WTO needs fundamental reform to account for … the presence of this massive non-market economy that just has a different structure to it,” Sullivan said, referring to China. “We can’t wait for WTO reform. We have to be pursuing a range of other strategies to deal with the fact of China as it is.”
While the manufacturing construction boom may hearken to the era of U.S. industrial policy, it’s too soon to declare a fundamentally new direction for the U.S. economy, which is still overwhelmingly service-based.?
More than 71 percent?of nonfarm payrolls are held by private service-providing employees, with the biggest subdivisions including transportation and warehousing, health care, retail and professional services. Manufacturing accounts for?less than 10 percent?of the U.S. workforce, down from?more than a quarter?in 1970.
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It’s also too soon to assess the impact of the new production methods on the destruction of Earth’s climate, which grows increasingly urgent and multivariate. Phenomena including?mass extinction,?deforestation and land degradation,?rising global temperatures,?extreme weather events,?mass migration and human displacement, and?entrenched pollution?are all factors raising tough questions for all industries.
Whether industrial production writ large can be reconciled with the long-term health of the climate has yet to be demonstrated at scale, but economists are hopeful.
“I think it’s not a conflict if it’s developed in a smart way,” the University of Michigan’s Banu said. “If smart businesses can realize that expanding their manufacturing products and bringing in underdeveloped areas into the process chain — this will help.”
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