Asia’s richest man Gautam Adani’s group is eyeing petrochemical and mining projects in Azerbaijan as the ports-to-energy conglomerate looks to expand the business beyond Indian shores.

Adani met Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in Davos last week, according to a statement from the office of the President of Azerbaijan.

“During the conversation, the parties discussed Azerbaijan’s attractiveness for foreign direct investments, the development of the country’s economy, and the prospects for co-operation with the Adani Group in petrochemical, mining and metallurgical industries, as well as other areas of mutual interest,” it said.

Adani, in recent years, is on a rapid diversification spree, expanding an empire centred on ports and coal mining to include airports, data centres and cement as well as green energy.

A first-generation entrepreneur, Adani, 60, founded the Adani Group in 1988 as a trading company, and its interests now span real estate, ports, airports, power generation, green energy, cement, coal and FMCG.

“According to Gautam Adani, the firm has vast experience in the fields of port management, transport and transportation in India and other regions of the world and has made direct investments in these fields in a number of nations,” the Azerbaijan government statement said.

“The parties agreed to conduct reciprocal visits of delegations and to hold comprehensive discussions on future collaboration.”

During the discussion, the two sides noted that Azerbaijan is the initiator of the East-West and North-South transport corridors, as well as one of the major transport logistics hubs, and explored potential avenues of co-operation in this respect.

They also acknowledged the significance of the Middle Corridor via Azerbaijan within the context of the East-West transportation corridor.

The Trans-Caspian EastWest Corridor, known shortly as the Middle Corridor, is crucial to reviving the ancient Silk Road.

It traverses on rail and road routes across Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea and continues toward China on the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan routes.