MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia plans to increase the development of its Far East and eastern Siberian regions through Asian cooperation organizations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.
“While developing our own programs for the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia, we try to engage all the potentials existing in Asian Pacific cooperative structures,” Lavrov said in an interview with Singapore’s Channel News Asia.
Russia’s top diplomat noted considerable growth in trade volume with Asian nations and the expansion of cooperation in other areas as well.
“We are now the number 8 economic partner of ASEAN, our volume of trade doubled during the last seven years. It is more than $20 billion a year now. And we intend to continue, not only trade but also joint economic projects in high technology, nuclear energy, outer space exploration, and transport,” Lavrov said.
He said the Far East and Siberia should be developing faster than they currently are.
“We certainly have an interest, first of all, in developing our Far East and Eastern Siberia… and we want this part of our country to develop much faster than it does,” Lavrov added.
