24 april 2012

First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov rounds up his working visit to Austria

Participants:

Viktor Zubkov made the following statement about his visit, while responding to journalists.

Constructive and, most importantly, productive, negotiations on issues of Russian-Austrian investment and trade and economic cooperation ended today.

The negotiations began yesterday during meetings with leading representatives of Austria's business community at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, with top managers of the Austria-Russia Friendship Society and Austria's OMV AG oil and gas concern. The negotiations continued during a conversation with Austria's Federal President, Heinz Fischer. Final talks were held today with Austria's Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger.

We discussed the current state of bilateral trade and economic cooperation and have charted specific guidelines making it possible to expand this cooperation and to consolidate this positive development trend. In 2011, bilateral trade turnover had soared by 40% over 2010 reaching $4.9 billion. Mutual investment volume also continued to expand. More than 1,200 Austrian firms and about 500 companies with Austrian capital now operate in Russia. In 2011, Russia received $2.3 billion worth of Austrian investment. The volume of accumulated Austrian investment in Russia is $5.5 billion.

Austrian companies and their Russian partners are currently involved in preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Innovation projects are an important aspect of bilateral economic cooperation. Work is underway to implement the declaration on partnership for modernisation and the plan to expand cooperation in economic modernisation, which was signed in May 2011 during Heinz Fischer's official Russian visit. We signed an inter-governmental agreement stipulating cooperation in infrastructure technology during this visit. This will make it possible to proceed with certain projects in this area. The document calls on both parties to include technology transfers and stipulates more active cooperation to expand infrastructure projects in transport, healthcare, energy, IT and communications. Moreover, the agreement will promote and increase the cooperation between Austrian companies and the Skolkovo Foundation in energy, biomedicine, environmental protection, IT and telecommunications technology, as well as space exploration.

Both sides are interested in expanding these and other projects. For example, this was highlighted on April 24 during a detailed conversation with leading representatives of the Austrian business community at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. We informed our Austrian partners in great detail about the Russian government's measures to promote national economic development and voiced our opinion on bilateral cooperation prospects. We agreed to continue this conversation at a regular meeting of the Russian-Austrian Business Council. This is a good platform allowing Russian and Austrian businesspersons to talk to each other in an informal setting. Apart from regular dialogue at the inter-governmental level, the council makes an important contribution to expanded Russian-Austrian bilateral trade and economic and investment cooperation.