ST. PETERSBURG, June 7. /TASS/. German businessmen are interested in boosting labor efficiency of potential Russian suppliers for raising the local content of Russia’s production, Deputy Economic Development Minister Petr Zaselsky said in an exclusive interview with the "Future Russia. National Projects" portal operated by TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Russia and Germany signed a memorandum on cooperation in the field of labor efficiency on Friday. According to Germany’s Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier, that is the first agreement singed by the two countries after western sanctions were imposed against Moscow. Russia inked similar agreements earlier with Japan and France.

"Not only the (Russian) side wanted to sign the (labor) efficiency agreement as we have a National Project, Germany also did as despite all political external frictions the German business is very interested in the Russian market and has always been interested. There are many projects on the local content of the German business in Russia, which are facing the issue of components suppliers of good quality," Deputy Minister explained.

He emphasized that so far foreign companies find it difficult to find proper suppliers in Russia. Zaselsky added that the improvement of labor efficiency not only sorts out production, but also allows improving the quality of products.

German businessmen have already expressed their willingness to share experience with Russian companies. "Preliminarily we have agreed that German companies are ready to accept Russian businessmen and demonstrate production. German companies are ready to train their suppliers as we are going to develop a roadmap and draft a plan of action," Deputy Minister said.

He noted that pooling of experience is very efficient as Russian companies will be able to see for themselves how production may be organized. A business mission on labor efficiency is expected to visit Japan in the autumn, he said, adding that a business mission to Germany will be also worked out.