istockAnalyst.com (press release), OR

Medvedev, Sargsyan to Discuss Economic Cooperation

Sunday, October 19, 2008 10:57 PM

(Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow – English)MOSCOW. Oct 19
(Interfax) – Russian-Armenian trade and economic interaction will be
the main topic at talks between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who will visit Armenia on October
20 – 21 at the invitation of this Armenia counterpart. "The main
provision on the agenda of Medvedev’s visit will be talks in the
tete-a-tete and extended formats with Sargsyan. The presidents will
discuss a large number of issues of multifaceted Russian-Armenian
cooperation," a Kremlin source told Interfax on the eve of the visit.

This will be the fifth meeting between the two presidents so far this
year. They earlier met on March 24 and June 24 in Moscow, June 6 in
St. Petersburg and September 2 in Sochi. "This vividly proves the high
level of political dialog aimed at the further strengthening of
strategic partnership and allied relations between Russia and
Armenia," the source said.

"Trade and economic interaction will be one of the topical subjects at
the meeting of the two presidents," he said.

Bilateral trade grew 13%, to $536.5 million, in eight months of 2008
compared to the same period a year ago. Russia is Armenia’s leading
foreign economic partner, particularly in terms of Russia’s
accumulated investments to Armenia from 1991 to July 1, 2008 topped
$1.6 billion, while Russia invested around $428 million in the first
six months of this year.

The two countries pay serious attention to expanding bilateral energy
trade. They successfully implement joint gas projects. There are
prospects in the nuclear energy sphere, geological surveying and the
industrial development of uranium fields as well, the source said.

Russia’s leading companies Gazprom (RTS: GAZP), Inter RAO UES, VTB
(RTS: VTBR), RusAl, VimpelCom (RTS: VIMP), AFK Sistema (RTS: AFKS),
Russian Railways (RZD) (RTS: RZHD), Alrosa (RTS: ALRS) all work in the
Armenian market.

"Transport problems in friendly Armenia are solved thanks to Russia’s
consistent actions," the source said. A comprehensive modernization of
Armenia’s railroad infrastructure began after RZD took concession
management of Armenian railroads in the beginning of the year.

As of now, 70 Russia’s regions are involved in international contacts
with Armenia, while 16 of them have already signed trade- economic,
scientific-technical and cultural interaction agreements with Armenia,
the source said.

Two more interregional agreements: on trade-economic, scientific and
cultural cooperation between the government of the Sverdlovsk region
and the Armenian government and a trade-economic, scientific-
technical and cultural cooperation between the government of the
Yaroslavl region and Armenia’s Armavir region, are planned for signing
during Medvedev’s visit, he said.

Medvedev will also attend in the opening ceremony of the Square of
Russia in Yerevan as part of his visit.

The Russian president will also take part in the ceremony of launching
a project to create Armenia’s national communication network
Komstar-UTS by Russia’s Komstar-UTS company, a part of AFK Sistema. A
broadband wireless network based on the WiMAX technology will cover
Yerevan and 18 of Armenia’s largest cities and will be one of the
first telecommunication networks of its kind in the world. "The
network is of great national importance from the viewpoint of
providing distant and hard-to-reach districts, given mountainous
landscape, as well as social facilities and emergency and special
services with quality communication," the source said.

(c) 2008 Daily News Bulletin; Moscow – English. Provided by ProQuest
LLC. All rights Reserved.

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