"The Azerbaijan journey for iCsquared GmbH has started with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev's speech at 'Strategic Outlook: Eurasia' as part of World Economic Forum 2018 which encouraged us to see Azerbaijan as a hub for CIS and GCC regions. Moreover, the meeting between Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and the Swiss Confederation President Ueli Maurer in 2019 opened a way for iCsquared GmbH as a Swiss company to choose Azerbaijan as the centre of gravity for our Azerbaijan, CIS and GCC operations", start Mr. Ayaz Bayramov, CEO, Partner, and Ms. Jamel Nampijja, VP, WASSERSTEIN Projects Coordinator, of iCsquared GmbH explaining their Swiss Azerbaijani cooperation.
Since November 2019, iCsquared GmbH with its subsidiary – iCsquared GmbH Azerbaijan has been actively involved in the import, export, re-export, cross-border trade operations in Azerbaijan to cover the CIS and GCC markets. "We started supplying leading chocolate factories, wholesalers as well as production and packaging facilities in Azerbaijan and CIS and GCC markets with peanuts, almonds, sesame, walnuts, hazelnuts, raisins, different dried fruits and many others from Argentina, Brazil, Uzbekistan, India, China, USA, Ukraine, and Turkey."
The company started the pilot project for peanuts plantations in 2021/22 and within 3 seasons, they increased their capability 25-fold, they say. "We are still in an early phase; with all the projects and plans we will have 2,500-3,000 ha of peanuts plantations which we will operate, and 20,000 ha for the WASSERSTEIN LOPAFA Program, 1,000-1,200 ha of potato plantation, 50 ha of asparagus, 50 ha of artichoke, 300 ha of chandler walnuts and few others with realistic ambitions of 100,000 MT of annual capacity for the peanut processing plant. Through this, Azerbaijan will be transformed from a peanut import country to the exporter of peanuts to CIS, GCC and EU markets."
The iCsquared GmbH team is in consultation with the local farmer with AZTV interview.
Regarding their growth potential, they say: "We had a very productive site-visit to Aghstafa and met with HE Seymur Orujov, the Governor. The governor has announced to allocate lands with water access to our plantations so that we will have peanuts, asparagus, artichoke, chandler walnuts and paulownia for the 2024/2025 season. In the forthcoming years, we will reach 1,000 ha of plantations in Aghstafa region."
Challenges at the beginning
Before the start of peanut plantations in Azerbaijan, they knew they would have many challenges to overcome. "Since we decided to start the pilot project in the Shamkir region of Azerbaijan in 2021/2022 without any public institutions support, we have had many challenges like finding a proper land for the peanuts plantations, having access to irrigation canals, sourcing a local team, finding a proper fertilizers and herbicides and many more", they say.
"The first challenge was to find a community of people who have done peanut harvesting in Azerbaijan. We heard that the Meskhetian Türks brought their peanut culture to Azerbaijan, but they plant peanuts only on their lands in small scales. So far, we merged our knowledge with local Meskhatian Türks in the Shamkir region of Azerbaijan and started the first 10 ha of a pilot project in Ceyranchol Valley with local peanuts seeds to find an answer to the main question if the Azerbaijani soil, climate, and people fit regarding peanut planting." It was challenging, but the result was very positive although the productivity was low, Bayramov and Nampijja stress.
Above: The iCsquared GmbH team in dialogue with HE Seymur Orujov, the governor of the Aghstafa region, to discuss future plans. Below: The ISAWIC team meets HE Majnun Mammadov, Minister of Agriculture of Azerbaijan.
Swiss-German equipment
Swiss-German equipment
After many considerations, the company is using Swiss-German equipment. "We have had many negotiations, but we stayed with the Bühler Group, which will use Swiss-German technologies for our future plant in the Jabrayil region of Azerbaijan at Araz Valley Economic Zone which is operated by Ministry of Economy with special concessions and incentives to attract FDIs. As we increase the plantations in Azerbaijan, we will be able to supply the processing plant in the Jabrayil region. We also plan to have small processing lines in the regions in the next years to support local farmers, one could be installed in Aghstafa at ABAK (Aghstafa International Agro-Clusters) to supply the northwestern parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia."
The Bühler Group standards will provide them with access to the EU markets, they say. "There, we plan to export salted-roasted peanuts in tins for COOP, Migros, Essenlunga, EDEKA and other leading European retail chains and HORECA too. In fact, to have affordable access to the European markets, since Azerbaijan has no direct access to the ports at the Mediterranean Sea, we are waiting for the opening of the Zangezur Corridor which will link Azerbaijan with Turkey's Mersin Port to lower the international transportation costs."
Right: iCsquared GmbH Team at the WASSERSTEIN LOPAFA Aghstafa Peanuts Plantation No 0525 for Harvesting
"Since we have strategic plans also to enter Central Asian countries - if the regional market demands are increased - we may also install another processing plant in Uzbekistan. We see Uzbekistan as one of the leading destinations with successfully carrying economic reforms and strategic policies. With Swiss-German technologies, we will bring the costs down with European standards."
Switzerland, however, is a land-locked non-EU-country. "We see Rotterdam as our EU destination in the forthcoming 5 years. Rotterdam is an epicentre of European international trade, which has access to most of EU markets. We plan to build a packaging facility in Rotterdam to supply private-label salted-roasted peanuts in tins, asparagus, artichokes, and walnuts to the EU markets. Switzerland's added value at this stage is to generate strategic plans, backup the financial mechanisms, expand our potential clients in Europe, and train our local farmers with leading specialists from Europe."
WASSERSTEIN LOPAFA Aghstafa Peanuts Plantation No 0525
Memorandum with Azerbaijan's largest retail and chocolate production group
Memorandum with Azerbaijan's largest retail and chocolate production group
iCsquared GmbH has been able to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Azerbaijan's largest retail and chocolate production group - Veyseloglu Group of Companies (VGG) - which has "sales points with powerful retail chains such as Araz Markets, OBA markets, SPAR and Rossmann among others. Mr. Aydin Talibov, the owner and CEO of VGG, has been in this business for over 30 years, and he was very supportive of our projects. We supplied his retails and chocolate company with peanuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins, and other died fruits from other countries, so he and his team were pushing us also to start plantations and processing centres to supply his chains and factories", they say.
"Our short story in the Azerbaijan market and operations in CIS and GCC has shown that investors and companies from Europe can easily access the Azerbaijan market to invest and expand to the regional markets from Azerbaijan", they conclude. "Azerbaijan is becoming a regional hub for plantations and processing centres with cross-roads transportations opportunities to have easy access to the world markets. Economic reforms which are carried out by Azerbaijan, which makes this country an epicentre of expanding new opportunities."
Photo credit: iCsquared GmbH
For more information:
Ayaz Bayramov
iCsquared GmbH
+41.787.41.6333
[email protected]
www.icsquared.ch