MOSCOW, October 22 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia and Israel will give more attention to the cooperation in the high-tech sphere, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said, commenting on the decision made during his Monday’s talks with Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour Shalom Simhon.
The talks were held on the sidelines of the First International Anti-Counterfeiting-2012 forum, which was organised under the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade’s participation.
During the talks, the Russian minister stated that it is important to maintain the exchange of views and experience in order to form a civilised market and work out a system of steps to prevent the manufacture and spread of counterfeit products.
“It is necessary to pay a special attention to the cooperation in the sphere of high technologies and production of advanced technological products,” Manturov said.
“Further interaction in those spheres – is a solid basis for the sustainable growth of the indices of bilateral trade and mutual investments,” he said.
The two sides also discussed the most topical aspects of Russian-Israeli trade and economic cooperation. The Russian minister of trade and industry pointed to the stable upward dynamics of bilateral trade.
“In 2010, Russian-Israeli trade turnover went up by 54 percent. In 2011, the indicator grew by 10.5 percent more to reach 2.9 billion U.S. dollars,” Manturov said.
“The data achieved in the first six months of the current year allow us to make a forecast that bilateral trade will again near three billion U.S. dollars by the end of the year,” he said.
He is confident that for the further stepping up of bilateral trade the two countries should continue the implementation of joint projects in the spheres of trade and investments, industrial research, innovations, agriculture, energy sector, space exploration, transport, tourism, information technologies, environmental protection, as well as the financial and banking investments fields.
With this in mind, the minister pointed to positive experience of the joint interaction between the Russian State Corporation of Nano-Technologies (Rosnano) and the Israeli Centre of Industrial Scientific, Research and Design Works. Their joint activity is aimed at the option of the most promising projects with the aim of their further financing. The two partner states have already held two tenders and opted three projects. Before the end of the year, they plan to hold the third tender.
The projects are aimed at the production of bio-polymers, design and production of chips for the wireless high-definition video broadcasting, design and production of nano-sensor-based detectors, creation of planar light-emitting diodes and production of chips for the LTE communication technology.
A growing interest of Israeli companies in the cooperation with the Skolkovo Fund will promote implementation of innovative projects in the spheres of bio-medicine, information, energy efficient and nuclear technologies.
“It is of huge significance that the established contacts are aimed not only on the development of high technologies, but also on their commercialisation and further promotion of the new ideas to the global markets,” the Russian minister of industry and trade said.
Denis Manturov and Shalom Simhon also considered in detail the current status of and prospects for further development of bilateral cooperation in the spheres of pharmaceutics and medical equipment.
At the end of the talks, the interlocutors decided to continue the discussion of those and other matters at the forthcoming meeting of the Russian-Israeli joint commission on trade and economic cooperation scheduled for December.