SOCHI, October 3. /TASS/. Russia is ready to help the Philippines fight against terrorism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a meeting with his visiting Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte.

"Dear Mr. President, we are ready to continue to offer partnership in the area of counter-terrorism efforts, to share our experience and practices," Putin said.

Opening the talks, the Russian leader noted that the relations between the two countries could be described as friendly. "I remember that during your previous visit to Russia in May 2017 you had to cut the visit short and return home because of terror attacks committed by Islamic State militants," Putin stated. "I know that in the past two years you have managed to considerably bring down the level of the terrorist threat in the country and strengthen the potential of law enforcement agencies."

Special attention was paid to the expansion of comprehensive cooperation between Russia and the Philippines. "Thanks to your personal efforts, political dialogue has been invigorated, significant progress has been made in terms of trade and economic cooperation," the Russian leader noted, citing official statistics for 2018 when bilateral trade had nearly doubled to exceed 1.2 billion US dollars, with Russia’s exports up by four times.

The Russian president stressed that the two countries had serious potential for further development of cooperation. According to Putin, Russian companies are ready to expand exports of energy, aircraft, transport and specialized equipment to the Philippines. "We are interested in further expansion of industrial cooperation, in establishing cooperation in the area of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, space exploration and the use of digital technologies," he stressed, adding that it was important to promote direct contacts between the two countries businesses, which is facilitated by a business council set up back in 2009, in his words.

The Russian delegation to the talks includes Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, Presidential Aide on International Affairs Yuri Ushakov, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Minister of Economy Maxim Oreshkin, Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev, Inter RAO Director General Boris Kovalchuk, Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev, Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheyev, and Rosneft CEO and Board Chairman Igor Sechin.