Trade between Russia and the United States will go back to its previous levels despite the global financial and economic crisis, said Elvira Nabiullina, Russian Minister of Economic Development.
As a result of the crisis trade between Russia and the U.S. dropped by 38%, she said in an interview with Interfax. "Still, we believe that this is a temporary thing. Global trade will restore, and so will the volumes of trade between Russia and the United States," the minister said.
"Trade relations will reach a totally new level," she said. "The structure of our bilateral trade will be more diversified and will be based, in particular, on bilateral investment. At any rate, we hope for this and we are working to make it a reality," she said.
"It is totally obvious that the volumes and quality of the trade relations between Russia and the U.S. do not meet the scale of our economies and the potential that they have," the economic minister said.
"Before the crisis, in 2008, we had a record trade growth, which stood at over US$27 billion. Even with this trade figure, the U.S. was only Russia's eighth biggest trade partner," the minister said. "This points to some unused potential in our trade," Nabiullina said.
While the U.S. accounts for 4% in Russia's foreign trade, Russia's share in the U.S. foreign trade is less than 1%, the minister said. "This is very little, compared to the potential of our countries and the opportunity to implement projects in various areas which would meet both Russian and U.S. interests," the minister said.
Among the areas of biggest interest are energy efficiency, energy saving, alternative sources of energy, nuclear energy, transport, space, ecology, nano- and biotechnologies, and information technologies, Nabiullina said.
News
