With the Baku skyline ever-changing, Azerbaijan’s capital played host to BusinessCem’s 24th International Conference and Exhibition this autumn, with discussions focussing on the cement sectors of Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey.
The 24th Eurasian Cement Forum, hosted by BusinessCem, was held in Baku, over 20-23 October 2013, at the Marriott Hotel, one of a collection of top-end international hotel chains including the Sheraton, Hilton, Four Seasons and Hyatt which have come to the Azerbaijani capital in the last couple of years, substantiating the view that the country’s economy is set to boom for some time to come. As one local said: “The city is growing fast, very fast.”
Baku’s skyline is dominated by the three 190m Flame Towers which symbolise how the hydrocarbon industry has underpinned the country’s economic growth, and standing near those towers one can see across the city competing skyscrapers on their way up. Be it renovations to the city’s old quarter, or the erection of new billboards, for countless 20- and 30-storey apartment developments dotted everywhere, these are bread-and- butter projects compared with the major industrial, leisure and infrastructure works both planned and underway.
