MOSCOW, May 08. /ITAR-TASS/. Trade turnover between Russia and Armenia is growing steadily, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on Thursday, May 8.

“Last year, trade turnover increased by 10.6% from the previous year and keeps growing this year too. And Russia remains the leading investor in Armenia,” he said.

Putin recalled that during his latest visit to Armenia important agreements had been reached and invited Sargsyan to “synchronise watches” and see “what else needs to be done and where we should speed up our work”.

Sargsyan said Russian-Armenian relations were developing dynamically and assured Putin that Yerevan would seek to intensify them.

“We are ready for active work. This is consistent with the historical tradition of friendship between our nations,” he said.

Russian-Armenian relations are regulated by more than 160 treaties and agreements, including on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, as well as on allied relations.

In 2012, trade turnover between the two countries exceeded 1.2 billion U.S. dollars. In the first eight months of 2013 it increased by 10.3% year on year.

Before leaving his post in April 2014, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said Russia and Armenia cooperated most actively in all areas of interstate relations without exception. Over the past years, Russian-Armenian cooperation has developed into a rather complex and multifaceted structure.

He stressed that Russia plays a key role in ensuring Armenia’s security and has a leading position in its economy.

“Today Russia plays a key role in Armenia’s security system and it occupies a leading position in our economy,” he said. “Russia is the main investor in the Armenian economy, one of its main creditors and one of the major foreign trade partners.”

“We are interested to improve these relations further, which is fully consistent with our national interests,” the prime minister said.

“Over the past 20-odd years we have not only preserved the centuries-old friendship between our peoples but we have also enriched it with new content and raised it to a qualitatively new level,” Sargsyan said, adding, “Strategic partnership between Armenia and Russia has crowned this friendship.”

“We give priority among others to diversification of economic cooperation between our countries. We are convinced that intensive interaction in sectors that build up innovation potential will give a boost to our economic cooperation. This will also allow us to fill our strategic partnership and allied relations between Russia and Armenia with new substance,” he said.

The two countries have good prospects in many sectors of the economy, primarily in the energy sector, the power industry, atomic energy, and many other serious projects.

There is also a big potential in joint development of the agro-industrial sector in Armenia.

Putin stressed earlier that Russian-Armenian relations had deep historical roots, had grown into allied partnership and continued to develop further.

He also expressed confidence that together Russia and Armenia would be able to further strengthen their relations and expand cooperation in various multilateral formats, including in the context of Armenia's accession to the Customs Union.

Russia promised active support to Armenia’s efforts to join the Customs Union.

The Customs Union between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia came into existence on January 1, 2010. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia are to go on with economic integration and vowed to remove all customs borders between their countries after July 2011.