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Russian government official sees chances to boost cooperation with Malaysia

Russia seeks to strengthen economic relations with Malaysia, and joint projects in different fields will help increase bilateral trade

KUALA LUMPUR, March 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s senior government official hopes that the implementation of different projects with Malaysia will help increase trade turnover.

“As of today, every country’s share in mutual trade reaches less than 0.5%,” Russian Economic Development Deputy Minister Alexei Likhachev said at the Russian-Malaysian Business Forum on Wednesday.

“Russia’s foreign trade turnover is reaching $1 trillion. Malaysia’s turnover is amounting to $500 billion,” he said.

Malaysian Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry Haji Samuri said that in 2013 trade turnover between the two countries had increased by 66% and reached $2 billion.

Russia seeks to strengthen economic relations with Malaysia and joint projects in different fields will help increase bilateral trade, Likhachev said, adding thta “the visit to Malaysia is central on the agenda of our business tour about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries.”

In the meantime, he said Russian-Malaysian relations could be considered insufficient.

“In the last years our economies have grown. However, the potential of bilateral cooperation requires more efforts,” Likhachev said.

Trade turnover can increase in such areas as energy, high-tech, transport, machine-building and electronic trading, he said.

Russia and Malaysia “have chances to enter big markets of integration associations”, Likhachev said.

“We’d like to create an intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation,” he said.

Likhachev proposed holding “a large-scale economic forum in Russia or in Malaysia at the end of the year to allow hundreds of entrepreneurs to sum up the results and determine concrete projects”.

The Russian business delegation includes about 30 companies dealing with high tech and biotechnology, machine-building and energy, as well as organisations such as Delovaya Rossiya and the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

Earlier, the Russian delegation visited Indonesia. Upon completion of the visit to Malaysia it will leave for Singapore.

“The South East praises personal contacts. Business missions are very useful to information exchanges,” Russian Ambassador to Malaysia Lyudmila Vorobyova told Itar-Tass.