Russian Energy Minister Courts Saudi Investment and Cooperation

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said his country is ready to cooperate with Saudi Arabia in a number of areas, including energy.

Speaking in the opening address of a Russian-Saudi Arabia intergovernmental commission in Saudi Arabia yesterday, Minister Novak said that the Russian government was keen to strengthen trade ties with Saudi Arabia.

"From our side, we are ready at the governmental level to review and, where possible, remove obstacles arising in the way of expansion of trade-economic ties," a press release on the Russian Energy Ministry website quotes him as saying. "We hope that the signing of the intergovernmental agreement on encouragement and mutual protection of investments, which is currently being prepared, as well as a memorandum of understanding in the field of agriculture, will open new horizons for expansion of inter-enterprise cooperation."

Key areas of interest, Minister Novak said, are oil and gas and electricity,agriculture, education, infrastructure development and investment. He also said that Russia is currently working on simplifying its visa regime and on introducing direct flights between the two countries.

He also encouraged investment from the Saudi Arabian side.

"I invite the Saudi counterparts to invest in Russian projects," he said. "We will try to create all the necessary conditions. Russia, in turn, is ready to invest in promising projects in the Kingdom."

At the same meeting, the minister also discussed the Turkish Stream project, Russian news agency Tass reports. 

"For the moment there are no concrete solutions," the agency quotes him as saying. "Today the prime minister ordered the government to consider and make proposals on the law on special economic measures. Such proposals will soon be developed, and then we can finally say what decisions will be approved by the government as part of the law."