Engineering partnership is also to make sweeping progress, added Mr. Kuchma. He exemplified his country's fertile Dniepropetrovsk Region. "There are no Russian or Ukrainian farm machines in its fields-only US- and German-made. That's a bit awkward."
The President called to pull down barriers to free capital and consumer service movement. "A good economy stimulates politics," he stressed.
The oil-and-gas complex is a fine instance of Ukrainian-Russian partnership, with a six- to eight-fold increase of Russian exports to Ukraine. Also very encouraging is teamwork in space rocket R&D and manufacture, said Mr. Kuchma.
"Russian capital investors are welcome," he went on. Ukraine settled its recent fuel-and-energy crisis thanks to its links with Russia, he emphasised.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma met in a routine conference in Yalta today to charter further progress of bilateral contacts before they proceeded to the business forum.
