The meeting of the Co-Chairs of the Intergovernmental Committee for Trade, Economic and Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivica Dacic with Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yury Borisov, took place in Belgrade today.

Minister Dacic and the DPM of the Russian Federation discussed the preparations for the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Serbia in January next year, and the upcoming Intergovernmental Committee session.

The two Co-Chairs also discussed cooperation in the fields of transport, infrastructure, railway, as well as the cooperation on further trade liberalization, including the signing of a new unified free trade agreement with the Euro-Asian Economic Union.

The Head of Serbian diplomacy assessed the political relations of Russia with Serbia with the highest mark, and not only insofar as the level at which talks were held, but also emphasized that these were the relations maintained at the highest level, the same as the mutual support and understanding existing between the two states and peoples. He said that economic relations had been on an ascending line, stating that the trade between the two countries this year, in the first nine months, was already near that recorded last year.

"In the last year, trade was around 2.6 billion US dollars in value terms, while in the first nine month of the current year it has already reached some 2.3 billion US dollars. It is estimated that it will exceed last year's results."
He added that the trade could even be better and that projections had been made to increase it to four billion US dollars annually.

Minister Dacic said that the meeting also focused on energy cooperation which, as he pointed out, was primarily an issue of energy security for Serbia, that is, how we would ensure gas supplies in the near future.

"This a political issue for us, because the quality of life of our citizens and the functioning of our economy depend on it. That is why we are very much interested in seeing how the Gordian knot in connection with the former South Stream, and now the Turk Stream, will eventually unravel, and whether or not Europe will issue permits in view of the double standards being applied to the Nord Stream in which case everything goes and in the case of the South Stream nothing is allowed", underlined Minister Dacic.

Russian DPM Borisov stated that today's meeting agreed on some documents that could be signed during President Putin's visit to Serbia, including one possibly relating to the Turk Stream.

"Political relations are at an exceptionally high level, and today we have considered concrete agreements to be signed during President Putin's visit to Serbia. We share the interest of Serbia in the development of the Turk Stream project and will contribute in every possible way to its implementation as one of the potential alternatives in the construction of the second arm leading to Serbia, Hungary and Austria", said Borisov.

"Our relations are traditionally good and we have a very special cooperation with Serbia", concluded the DPM of the Russian Federation.