The Consular Corner
The World is Open
for Orange County Business
This is the first installment of an occasional features. Over the months to come, we will be presenting interviews with members of the diplomatic community in Southern California. We begin with the Honorable Nasimi Aghayev, Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps.
The international community is open to deeper cooperation with Orange County, said the Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps and Consul General of Azerbaijan Nasimi Aghayev. “The majority of countries with consulates in Southern California represent large communities of Orange County residents,” he said on November 11. “International corporations housed in our countries would like to do business in the county. Any information regarding business opportunities in Orange County would be very helpful.”
The Los Angeles Consular Corps is the third largest grouping of international consulates in the world, representing 100 different nations. There are 65 Consulates General and 35 honorary consuls. They represent everywhere from Afghanistan to Zambia. “We are open for business,” said the Consul General. “But remember, an international corporation can do business anywhere. They want to feel welcome.”
“We would like to see more outreach by Orange County to the Consular Corps,” said Aghayev, who has been Dean of the Consular Corps since December 2017. “With the only exception being the current mayor of Irvine, Farrah Khan, there has not been much outreach from Orange County to the Consular Corps.”
As Consul General of Azerbaijan, Aghayev has been posted to Los Angeles for over nine years, making him currently the longest serving consul general in Los Angeles. Azerbaijan, he said, is looking for Orange County investors in agriculture, high tech, ports and transportation, green energy, tourism industry, and manufacturers of equipment for the oil and gas industries.
Azerbaijan wants to position itself as the transportation hub linking Europe to Asia, so it is interested in expanding its transportation infrastructure. High tech industries have a home in duty free zones, incubators and technological parks. At the recent COP 26 conference in Glasgow, the government committed to lower CO2 emissions 40 percent by 2050. Areas of the country that are being newly developed with billions of dollars of investments, such as Karabakh and East Azngezur, are planned to be zero emission zones. “As the first international investor in turning these areas into a ‘green zone,’ BP has pledged to build solar power plants there,” he said.
Azerbaijan is important to the United States and its allies. It provides 40% of the oil consumed in Israel, and it is a non-Russian source of natural gas for Europe. American aid to the country has been used to strengthen its borders with Iran, resulting in the seizure of 1.5 million tons of heroin. “Just last week,” he said, “with the aid America has given us we seized a half ton of heroin, with a street value of $70-80 million. That aid is an American investment that keeps those profits out of the pockets of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”
