An action plan aimed at settling restrictions in trade between Russia and Ukraine is designed to normalize the volume of trade between the two countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
“This is what the plan for settling trade restrictions is aimed at,
and it should be endorsed based on the outcomes of today’s meeting,”
Putin said at a session of the Russian-Ukrainian interstate
consultations in Moscow on Tuesday.
Trade between Russia and Ukraine dropped to $45 billion in 2012 and by another 15% in the first nine months of 2013, he said.
Russia remains Ukraine’s main economic partner and accounts for 30% of Ukraine’s trade balance, Putin said.
“True, there are also problems, and we also talked about this today.
What is alarming is that there has been a downward trend in our trade in
the past two years. Trade turnover went down by 11 percent to $45 billion in
2012,” he said.
The interstate consultations are taking place at the right time, so
that the two parties could “look what needs to be done in order to
reverse this negative trend and not only reach the previous benchmarks
but also provide conditions for moving ahead,” Putin said.
Putin also mentioned cooperation between the two countries in the
grain sector; in particular, he said the Russian-Ukrainian-Kazakh grain
pool is about to start operating.
The Russian leader also mentioned humanitarian cooperation between
Russia and Ukraine. “We will celebrate the 200th anniversary of [the
poet] Taras Shevchenko and an anniversary of Sevastopol’s liberation
from the Nazi invaders next year,” he said.
