BANGKOK, August 07. /ITAR-TASS/. Economic cooperation with countries of the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) is gaining momentum in view of geopolitical tendencies challenging the global economy, a top Russian diplomat said at a session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) on Thursday.

“A full-scale entry into the APR market is a guarantee of diversification of domestic economy and a key factor in raising production in Siberia and the Far East,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vassily Nebenzya said.

Focusing on geopolitical tendencies that are already challenging the global economy, he said “we can clearly see tendencies towards an abuse by some countries of their controlling situation in trade and finance,” he said. “Protectionism is gaining momentum. Sanctions as geopolitical instruments and unfair competition are becoming common practice,” the top diplomat added.

“We share with the absolute majority of APR states approaches to shaping the global development agenda after 2015. We are confident that the strategy of social-economic progress must be built strictly within the framework. of stable development and be concentrated on rooting out poverty,” the diplomat said. He said Russia was against “artificial politicizing of the global agenda”.

UNESCAP is the geographically and demographically biggest regional commission of the United Nations with the headquarters in Bangkok. It brings together 62 states with a population of 4.1 billion people, or more than 60% of the world population.

Russia has been part of UNESCAP since it was founded in 1947, and is one of its biggest donors at the moment.