ARMENIA PM TO BE FIRST FOREIGN PREMIER ZUBKOV WILL TALK WITH

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
September 24, 2007 Monday

A broad range of questions of Russian-Armenian cooperation in the
political and economic areas will be in the focus during the visit of
Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan to Moscow. This is Sarkisyan’s
first official visit to Russia in the capacity of head of the Armenian
government appointed in April. Sarkisyan will be the first premier
of a foreign state with whom new Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov
will hold talks.

Sarkisyan on Monday flew to Moscow at the head of the government
delegation to hold talks on various aspects of bilateral ties,
Meri Arutyunyan, the chief of the government press service, told
Itar-Tass. There are plans for his meetings with Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov, with head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom)
Sergei KIriyenko, general secretary of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) Nikolai Bordyuzha, and secretary-general of the
Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) Grigory Rapota. The Armenian
prime minister will hold a news conference at Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

Serzh Sarkisyan, becoming Armenian premier, also holds the post of
head of the Armenian part of the Intergovernmental Commission for
Economic Cooperation between the Russian Federation and Armenia.

Cooperation of the two countries develops on a bilateral and
multilateral basis. Armenia, just as Russia, is for the strengthening
of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is a member of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Russia is Armenia’s main trading partner. Armenia’s direct commercial
ties with Russian regions develop successfully. Some 70 subjects of
the Russian Federation maintain bilateral economic ties with Armenia.

The volume of trade between Russia and Armenia has doubled and
will exceed 0.5 billion dollars by the end of the year, acting
transportation minister of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin said
last week. The head of the Russian part of the Intergovernmental
Commission for Economic Cooperation said that Russian investments into
Armenia’s economy increased. They amounted to 74 million dollars in
the first six months of 2007.

The lack of direct transportation between the two countries remains
the main hindrance to the development of Russian-Armenian economic
cooperation. The Abkhazian stretch of the railway between Russia and
Armenia is closed, and the bulk of freight is carried from Russia to
Armenia by the Black Sea via the Georgian port of Poti, and goes by
rail the remaining part of the way. Measures are taken to increase
the load on Port Kavkaz-Poti ferry service.