Rogozin: Russian–Serbian trade on the rise
Trade between Russia and Serbia is growing, “thanks to Serbia’s swift response to the suggestion that it fill the vacated niches in the Russian market for agricultural goods”, said Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Russian–Serbian Committee on Trade, Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation Dmitry Rogozin at a press conference today, marking the end of the committee’s fourteenth session.
“Russia’s customs statistics show that bilateral trade volumes grew, and I mean in real terms, over the first 10 months of 2015”, he said, noting that further opportunities are emerging due to the active participation of Serbian enterprises and private companies in agricultural and food industry exhibitions held in Russia.
Promising projects
According to Rogozin, “a number of projects, including those outside the energy sector, have been studied in detail and will be implemented.” The largest of these is the infrastructure project being undertaken by Russian Railways and Serbian Railways, worth more than USD 940 million and made possible by a Russian Government loan.
“A project has also been launched through Rosatom to create a regional centre for the production of radiopharmaceuticals in Serbia”, Rogozin continued. He also referred to a project to introduce assembly production of LiAZ city buses in Serbia and to supply trolleybuses. “We welcome the commencement of deliveries of Russian GAZelle NEXT commercial vehicles and LiAZ city buses to the Serbian market”, he said, adding: “Cooperation in the banking sector is also growing. The Russian rouble is increasingly being used for payments.”
Defence and technical cooperation
With regard to cooperation on defence and technical issues, Rogozin said that by the end of February the intergovernmental committee would “form a high-level commission, set to begin work by the beginning of spring 2016.” He said that a commission on strategic issues would also be set up under the intergovernmental committee, in order to review large-scale energy projects “as well as issues which have recently arisen as a result of the restrictions Russia has been forced to implement on Turkish imports following the crime committed by the Turkish Government and Turkish Air Force against the Russian military peacekeeping mission in Syria.”
Developing tourism and agriculture
Rogozin also discussed a number of strategic questions relating to the development of tourism and agriculture. “I believe that there will soon be a need to create a special trading house to provide support to small and medium-sized agricultural businesses in Serbia, helping them with logistics and supplying high-quality Serbian agricultural products to the Russian market. There is a huge niche here”, he said. “It is of utmost importance that no time is lost. Companies should seize the opportunity to enter a market which one could already describe as open. We would be very glad to see Serbia come onto the Russian market.”
“We have agreed to do all we can, making extra efforts to ensure that the forthcoming visit of Russian Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev to Belgrade this year will deliver on its great potential”, Rogozin added.
He also drew attention to the twentieth St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, set to take place on June 16–18 this year, and invited representatives from the Serbian Government and business community to become actively involved.
He announced that the next session of the intergovernmental committee would take place in October this year in Russia. “I understand that the meeting will be held in the ancient Russian cities of Vladimir and Suzdal”, Rogozin said.
Source: http://ru.euronews.com/newswires/3125404-newswire/ (Russian)
