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APEC participants showing great interest in Russian coronavirus shots, says ambassador

Concrete national vaccines or medicines were not discussed but APEC was interested in reaching agreements that would help advance vaccines on the market of the region

MOSCOW, June 7./TASS/. Participants in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum are demonstrating great interest in Russia’s coronavirus jabs, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Kirill Barsky told an online conference on Monday.

"The interest is huge," said Barsky, who is Russia’s senior official in APEC. "We understand that the unimpeded registration of our vaccine, the establishment of cooperation on the track of the vaccine distribution, and the production of the vaccine in region’s nations will facilitate the soonest victory over the pandemic," the diplomat emphasized.

He noted that APEC was not discussing concrete national vaccines or medicines but was interested in reaching agreements that would help advance vaccines on the market of the region and make them available to its population.

Recently, APEC trade ministers convened for a video conference, vowing to speed up the distribution of vaccines against coronavirus. "We view the outcome of the APEC trade ministers’ meeting quite positively, since we in fact managed to agree on common approaches to the topic of cooperation on the vaccine track, and in general in the battle against the novel coronavirus infection, committing this to paper in a joint statement and annexes to it," Barsky said.

"Of course, this is one among the stages in our work to facilitate the jabs, but I would like very much to believe that this stage will help our vaccine to be advanced more efficiently and will help to overcome the crisis related to the health of the population and its economic consequences," the Russian diplomat concluded.