142 ¶ ¶ PARIS, November 20, 21:21 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia signed a declaration on associated partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday, November 20.
“Our contacts with the IAE have become much stronger lately: we regularly attend the meetings of the Agency’s Governing Board. We are listened to and heard. But the associated partnership agreement will allow us to raise our interaction to a new level,” Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky, who heads the Russian delegation, told ITAR-TASS.
Associated partnership calls for more intensive exchanges of information on general energy challenges, energy market analysis and joint development of common tactics for addressing common issues.
Along with Russia, the declaration was also signed by Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, and South Africa. “We laid the foundation for a new discussion platform with the IEA. While previously the role of the international agency was reduced to the search for urgent solutions to energy crises, now it can work together with BRICS countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Afrcia] to prevent such crises,” Yanovsky said.
He noted that the IEA and the Russian Energy Ministry had agreed to conduct expert seminars in 2014-2015 to study the situation in the world oil and gas markets in order to make them more transparent and securer.
IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven will visit Moscow next week to present the Agency’s World Energy Outlook up to 2035.