OREANDA-NEWS. June 04, 2010. The Russian-Nicaraguan Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Trade and Scientific-Technical Cooperation (IGC) held its first session in Managua on June 1-2 under the chairmanship of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nicaragua Manuel Coronel Kautz. There was also a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nicaragua Samuel Santos.

As part of its work, the Commission examined major questions and thrust areas of bilateral cooperation: maintaining various-level political dialogue on a regular basis, strengthening the legal framework, and developing and implementing joint projects in communication, transportation and infrastructure, energy development and hydrocarbon extraction, education and science, health care, disaster prevention and management, and military-technical cooperation.

The finance ministries of the two countries signed an agreement regulating the terms of granting financial assistance by Russia to Nicaragua to finance the state budget deficit. A memorandum of intent on cooperation in the field of transport was concluded. In the pipeline are a number of intergovernmental documents the signing of which will be held in the near future.

The session of the IGC and its specialized working groups has shown that, pursuant to the accords reached by the presidents of the two countries in December 2008, a serious groundwork has been created for filling Russian-Nicaraguan relations with new content and elevating them to the level of strategic partnership.

Following the IGC meeting in Managua Sergei Ryabkov was received by President of the Republic of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, who praised the work done in the course of the meeting.