OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2009. The views on the current state and perspectives of developing Turkmen-Russian cooperation through employing its profound potential were exchanged during a working meeting of the members of the bilateral business councils in the Turkmen capital. The representative delegation of the Russian-Turkmen business council including the top managers of Russian large companies arrived in Ashgabat specially to participate in the meeting organized by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan.

The key agenda item was the preparations for the Turkmen-Russian economic forum which would be held in Moscow this March during the official visit of President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to the Russian Federation.

Focusing on the growing mutual interest in expanding traditional cooperation based on the solid foundation of age-old friendship the sides put emphasis on the necessity of signing the Memorandum between the business councils of two countries. The sides focused on the effectiveness of active joint participation in the international exhibitions and conferences.

Focusing on the importance of employing the existing profound potential in full the participants of the meeting informed of the countries’ willingness to expand and diversify mutually advantageous trade and economic cooperation. Ranking among the world’s technology producers Russia had the latest scientific and industrial innovations that modern Turkmenistan relied on advancing towards the progress.

The top managers of the Russian large companies expressed the willingness to expand on the Turkmen market and actively collaborate in the concrete projects including exploration and development of offshore hydrocarbon deposits in the Caspian Sea and technology modernization of the leading sectors of Turkmen economy, in particular power industry. The Russian businessmen presented about 60 joint projects to the Turkmen partners for consideration.

Summing up the joint activities the participants noted with satisfaction that with the assistance of the Russian-Turkmen business council 10 contracts were implemented mainly in the private sector that met the priorities of Turkmenistan’s development.

The talks focused on the specific steps towards concerting efforts to intensify the fruitful intergovernmental dialogue. Emphasis was put on the importance of regular meetings to work out the common approaches to building the platform for further effective partnership.

During the visit of the Russian representative delegation will hold the meetings and talks at the national ministries and departments to specify the opportunities of bilateral cooperation in the priority fields.