MOSCOW, July 10 (Itar-Tass) — Russian-Israeli trade relations are developing. Bilateral trade turnover reached 960 million U.S. dollars in the first four months of the year, Russia’s Ambassador to Israel Sergei Yakovlev told Itar-Tass on the sidelines of the conference of Russia’s ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions in Moscow on Tuesday.
“Russian-Israeli trade and economic relations are characterised lately by the high dynamics and growing tendency to the gradual switch over from simple barter operations to more advanced forms of cooperation,” the diplomat said, adding, “Mutual trade reached 960 million U.S. dollars over the first four months of the year, as compared to the same period of 2011, when the indicator amounted to 830 million U.S. dollars.”
“However, the two countries did not reached a significant progress in the sphere of investment cooperation so far,” the ambassador said, explaining that the enhancement of interaction in this sphere is hindered with the lack of an agreement of the promotion and mutual protection of capital investments.
“Israel is one of the world’s leaders in the field of innovations and high technologies,” Yakovlev said, adding, “The experience accumulated by the country in this area, as well as advanced technologies and equipment may be and should be used in the modernisation of the Russian economy.”
In his words, the process has already been launched and the results have been yielded mainly in agriculture. “Russia has created and continued setting up modern joint ventures in the sphere of plant, chicken and animal farming on the basis of Israeli’s high technologies in various regions of the country,” the diplomat said.
The Russian Ambassador to Israel pointed to the progress in the implementation of cooperation agreements in the format of the ROSNANO and Skolkovo Foundation projects, as well as space exploration and transport construction.