SEOUL, May 19. /TASS/. Moscow and Seoul will be able to eliminate the shrinkage of bilateral trade and to translate new mutually beneficial projects into life, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said on Tuesday at a working breakfast with top representatives of the South Korean business community.
The breakfast was organized as part of his official visit to the Republic of Korea.
"Expansion of economic cooperation and a buildup of commercial ties and investment with Korea is an unconditional priority for our relations with Korea and we can see perfectly well this mood is reciprocal," Naryshkin said.
He indicated that bilateral trade had been showing fairy good rates in the previous ten or so years and it had reached a relatively big figure of $ 27 billion by 2014.
"It’s also true though that a certain decline has been felt since the beginning of this year due to economic and political factors but still I feel confident it’s a passing phenomenon," Naryshkin said.
He called on Korean business executives "to do intense mutual work" for attaining qualitatively and structurally improved trade indicators.
"I’m sure this add greater stability to our trade relations and will impart more balance to it in separate sectors," Naryshkin said.
An important step in this respect was made when Russia’s Vnesheconombank and Korea’s Eximbank reached agreement on setting up an investment platform with a total amount of funds at $ 1 billion.
"Besides, there is a memorandum of understanding between the Russian Fund of Direct Investing and the Korean Investment Corporation as regards the platform with roughly the same amount of monies," Naryshkin said.
These platforms will help launch new projects, stimulate economic development of Russian Far-Eastern territories and promote Russian-Korean cooperation in general.
"We have good enough prospects for the development of regional infrastructures and I’d like to note in this context a pilot project for reconstruction of a railway between (the Russian station of) Khasan and (the North Korean city of) Rajin, as well construction of a cargo terminal in the Rajin seaport."
Naryshkin called attention to the Russian government’s plans to increase the traffic capability of the Baikal Amur Mainline as a major element of the entire Eurasian transport corridor. "We’re looking forward the South Korean companies’ active involvement in these and other projects."
In addition to it, Naryshkin stressed the importance of collaboration in high-tech areas.
He recalled that Moscow and Seoul had signed more than 50 agreements in a variety of areas, which meant the availability of a solid legislative groundwork.
The working breakfast was attended by business executives of leading South Korean companies like Samsung Electronics, LS Networks, Daelim, Lotte Group, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, BHI Group, as well as by senior officials from a number of foreign trade associations.