BRASILIA, July 14. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia and Brazil are hoping to reverse the decline in bilateral trade, President Vladimir Putin said after talks with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Monday, July 14.

“Brazil is a major trade and economic partner of Russia in Latin America” and trade turnover with it has been growing steadily over the past decade, Putin said. He admitted, however, that the volume of trade between the two countries had slightly decreased over the past two years, including by 3.2% in 2013.

“It was high time we met to talk about all the problems we are facing and map out ways to solve them. We discussed with Madame Rousseff possible practical steps and measures aimed at reversing this situation,” Putin said.

He described his talks in Brasilia as substantive and constructive. The two sides signed a large number of inter-agency and commercial agreements aimed at spurring up the development of Russian-Brazilian ties in various areas.

Putin stressed the need to step up investment and industrial cooperation between the two countries, including in science-intensive sectors. He also noted that a number of major Russian companies were already operating in Brazil, including Rosneft and Power Machines.

“Russia fully meets Embraer’s demand for titanium materials, and leading Russian and Brazilian machine-building companies, KamAZ and Marco Polo, have launched the production of buses in Russia,” he said.

“There are more and more joint projects in high-tech industries,” the president said, referring to Kaspersky Laboratory, Biocad, Qiwi and others. “We are planning to continue to encourage direct business contacts between our countries, including between small and medium-sized business,” the president said.