Necessary to promote growth of Russia-Israel trade - Medvedev
MOSCOW. Nov 5 (Interfax) - Major energy and gas projects, as well as efforts to give additional impetus to agricultural and pharmaceutical cooperation will help boost the volume of bilateral trade between Russia and Israel, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.
"We could spur cooperation by implementing a number of key projects, including pharmaceutical projects and agrarian technologies," Medvedev said in an interview with Channel 2 Israel ahead of his visit to this country.
Agricultural produce account for about a third of Israeli exports to Russia, he said.
"Israel has excellent agrarian technologies, and we have a lot to learn here. We maintain special relations between our agrarian centers and agrarian universities. As I see it, this aspect is also very important and interesting," the Russian prime minister said.
Medvedev also mentioned the area of high technologies and the development of startups.
"Israel has achieved a lot in this area, and we also have some very good projects and inventions in this economic segment. If we incentivize this segment of our cooperation, I am confident that we will be able to achieve very impressive results in trade cooperation. In addition, there are ambitious projects being discussed in the energy and gas sector," Medvedev said.
In the past few years, economic cooperation between Russia and Israel has not grown to such an extent as could have been expected, he said.
"The current Russia-Israel trade turnover stands at about $2 billion. This is not very much," Medvedev said, adding that bilateral trade had exceeded this amount by about 30% before the world economic crisis.
"As Prime Minister of Russia, it is my goal to expand trade, which will benefit both the Israeli and Russian business communities," he said.
Medvedev also said that he was looking forward to his visit to Israel.
"I hope that during my meetings with Israeli President and Prime Minister we will be able to discuss the key issues on the bilateral agenda, taking into account that we have been active in our contacts," the prime minister said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a number of occasions within the last twelve months, he said.
"This will be the first visit by the Prime Minister of Russia to Israel in many years, not to mention that in my previous capacity I did not get a chance to pay a friendly visit to Israel for a very simple reason: your Foreign Ministry went on strike and refused to arrange any visits. Of course, everyone has the right to strike, but this situation clearly did not help promote dialogue," Medvedev said.