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By Hovannes Shoghikian<\/span><\/p>\n Senior government officials from Armenia and Russia reviewed economic links between their countries and mapped out more bilateral projects ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev\u2019s visit to Yerevan on Monday.<\/p>\n The Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation wrapped up a regular meeting in Yerevan just hours before the start of Medvedev\u2019s first trip to Armenia in his current capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all got convinced once again that Russian-Armenian economic cooperation has a great deal of potential for further development,\u201d Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian, the commission\u2019s Armenian co-chairman, said at the end of the meeting. He said the two governments should continue to \u201cwork consistently\u201d to achieve that development.<\/p>\n Opening the meeting earlier in the day, Sarkisian expressed hope that the Armenian and Russian presidents \u201cwill positively evaluate the results of our work.\u201d Citing Kremlin sources, Russian news agencies have said economic issues will dominate Medvedev\u2019s talks with President Serzh Sarkisian.<\/p>\n \u201cEconomic cooperation between our countries continues to develop steadily and it is quite natural to hope that bilateral trade will reach $1 billion this year,\u201d the commission\u2019s Russian co-chairman, Transport Minister Igor Levitin, said for his part.<\/p>\n The Armenian government said in a statement that Russian-Armenian trade was high on the meeting\u2019s agenda along with the fate of Armenian enterprises that were handed over to Russia in payment of Yerevan\u2019s $100 million debt to Moscow. Most of those enterprises, notably the Mars electronics factory in Yerevan, have stood idle since then.<\/p>\n According to Levitin, the Russian government would like to give Mars to a private Russian company which he said is ready to revitalize it with large-scale investments. \u201cBut the plant\u2019s efficient and competitive functioning requires either the creation of a free economic zone or a techno park,\u201d Levitin told journalists. He said he hopes the Armenian government will agree to the proposed tax breaks.<\/p>\n The two sides also announced an agreement to set up a Russian-Armenian joint-venture in Armenia that will manufacture bitumen, a construction material used for paving roads and streets. Armenia is heavily dependent on its imports from abroad. Levitin said the plant will not only meet domestic demand but also export some of its production.<\/p>\n The commission apparently avoided discussing in detail possible Russian involvement in other, far more large-scale, economic projects planned by the Armenian government. That includes the construction of a new nuclear plant and a railway linking Armenia to neighboring Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is still in the discussion stages as experts are preparing to make feasibility evaluations,\u201d said Sarkisian. \u201cSo naturally, decisions will be made only after the [feasibility] studies are over.\u201d<\/p>\n (Armenian presidential press service photo: Dmitry Medvedev and Serzh Sarkisian meet near the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on September 2.)<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By Hovannes Shoghikian Senior government officials from Armenia and Russia reviewed economic links between their countries and mapped out more bilateral projects ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev\u2019s visit to Yerevan on Monday. The Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation wrapped up a regular meeting in Yerevan just hours before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":179175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}