RF IS IN SHAMEFUL THIRD PLACE IN ARMENIAN ECONOMY ON LINE OF INVESTMENTS, V.PUTIN DECLARES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 31 2006

MOSCOW, OCTOBER 31, NOYAN TAPAN. RA President Robert Kocharian who
is in RF on a working visit had a tete-a-tete talk with RF President
Vladimir Putin on October 30 in the Kremlin. According to the report
submitted to NT from RA President’s Press Office, V.Putin greeting RA
President’s visit to Russia expressed satisfaction with the fact that
the bilateral relations periodically continue at the highest level
and depth. He touched upon extension of Armenian-Russian economic
cooperation in the recent period emphasizing that only in the eight
months of this year the volume of mutual trade amounted to 278 mln
dollars, which exceeds the index of the same period of the previous
year by 60%.

Nevertheless, he considered as "shameful" fact that Russia takes the
third place in Armenian economy by the volume of investments. "We
are in the shameful third place, as it is strange that Russia does
not take the first place in the economy of its strategic partner on
the line of investments," RF President said. Meanwhile, he attached
importance to the circumstance that the Russian investments in
Armenia have a tendency of growing. Robert Kocharian, in his turn,
said that all agreements with Gazprom on energy projects start
to be implemented. "So, the investment component will essentially
change next year," he said. As an excellent example of bilateral
cooperation RA President mentioned launching of ArmenAl that has
been modernized lately and has increased the production volumes
for several times. At the meeting V.Putin also touched upon Year of
Armenia in Russia mentioning that it proceeds very well and is the
natural continuation of Year of Russia in Armenia. RA President also
mentioned that all events scheduled within the framework of Year of
Armenia in Russia have been implemented. He considered it interesting
that proposals of holding joint events were received from RF regions
during the year, which enriched the scheduled program. R.Kocharian
attached importance to further continuation of cooperation in the
humanitarian sphere and preservation of mechanisms already worked out
in this direction. Opinions on international and regional problems were
exchanged at the meeting. They touched upon perfection of cooperation
within the framework of CIS, Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) and Eurasian Economic Cooperation. RA and RF Presidents also
discussed issues relating to combining the two countries’ efforts
in the direction of rehabilitation of the situation in the region,
revelation of the potential of bilateral cooperation, prevention of
new conflicts, in particular, the unsolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict.