"Italy is the 11th largest foreign investor in Russia, its accumulated direct investments amounts to about $300 million," Mr. Borisov said.
The investments are mainly in trade and public services. About 65% of Russian-Italian enterprises provide trade, intermediary, consulting, hotel, restaurant and transportation services.
"About 30% of these enterprises are involved in woodworking, manufacturing furniture and textiles, the agricultural sector and the chemical and petrochemical industries," Mr. Borisov said.
Russian-Italian joint ventures include Blue Stream, the construction of a gas pipeline to Turkey and manufacturing Stinol refrigerators in the Lipetsk Region, he said.
Italy is Russia's second largest western trading partner and is the third largest overall partner after Germany and Belarus.
Trade between Russia and Italy in 2003 increased by 13% and reached $11 billion. In the first half of 2004, trade was about $6 billion, however recently it has stabilized, he said.
Russia mainly exports raw materials (77% of its exports are energy products, ferrous and non-ferrous metals and timber). Machine engineering products only account for 1%, he said.
Russia is interested in cooperating with Italy in the chemical and petrochemical industries, including in the construction of terminals at Russian ports to export these products. He said, there was great potential in the sphere of innovations.
