MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Despite a decrease in cooperation, Germany is still among Russia’s key trade-and-economic partners, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Italy’s Limes magazine.
"Germany’s cumulative investment exceeds $11.6 billion" he said. "About 6,000 companies with German capital are active on our market. They aggregate turnout exceeds $50 billion"
He noted that dialogue between the two countries, including that at the top level, was never interrupted. "We attach special significance to promotion of cultural and humanitarian ties that are called to maintain trust and mutual understanding between our peoples," he said. "The public form Petersburg Dialogue was resumed in October 2015. Active work is being done to prepare the cross year of Russian-German youth exchanges in 2016-2017 which will take up the baton from the cross years of the Russian and German languages and literature."
"We think that it would be in the long-term interests of both peoples to preserve and magnify the positive potential that has been accumulated in the past decades," Lavrov stressed.