Nikolai Nikiforov invites Slovenian delegation to SPIEF 2017
Nikolai Nikiforov invites Slovenian delegation to SPIEF 2017
The 13th meeting of the Russian–Slovenian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation took place on November 18, 2016. The two sides discussed a wide range of issues related to bilateral cooperation.
“The last meeting of the Commission took place a little over a year ago. It has been a very busy period since then. The Co-Chairs of the Intergovernmental Commission have met on several occasions and there have been sessions for working groups, as well as meetings and negotiations between various organizations representing our nations. The Russian President Vladimir Putin’s working visit to Slovenia in summer 2016 was a significant event for the development of our bilateral relations. Agreements have been reached on generating additional impetus in trade, investment, cultural, and humanitarian links between our countries,” announced Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Media and Co-Chairman of the Russian–Slovenian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation Nikolai Nikiforov during his presentation at the meeting.
Nikiforov also said that Russia views Slovenia as its strategic trade and economic partner in the Balkans. However, the fall in global commodity prices, exchange rate fluctuations, and the mutual sanction regimes between Russia and the European Union resulted in a reduction in the value and volumes of Russian oil and gas exports, and of medicine, household appliance, automobile, and machinery imports from Slovenia in 2015. In consideration of this, one of the key themes at the meeting was finding ways to restore the value and volumes of bilateral trade to pre-crisis levels.
Nikolai Nikiforov invited the Slovenian side to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which is scheduled to take place June 1–3, 2017.
Head of the Office for European Affairs and International Cooperation of the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia and Advisor to the Minister of Economic Development and Technology of Slovenia Dijana Madžarac expressed Slovenia’s interest in participating.
