Russia, Finland eye Arctic cooperation
The construction of icebreakers and other technology for application in the Arctic is one of our perspective fields cooperation, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in yesterday’s meeting with Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
In the period of post-crisis revival, our national economies doubtless benefit from close cooperation and joint commercial projects, Putin told Halonen in yesterday’s meeting in St. Petersburg. Present at the meeting was also city Mayor of St. Petersburg Valenina Matvienko and a group of ten prominent Finnish business representatives.
Among the issues highlighted by Putin were perspectives for joint development and construction of icebreakers, as well as technology for the Arctic. –This kind of equipment we can both use for our own purposes, as well as sell to third countries, Putin said, a transcript posted at the Russian government website reads.
Putin also confirmed that the agreements on timber trade remain in force and that export tariffs on round timber will remain unchanged until January 2011. As BarentsObserver has reported, the timber trade has over the last years been a sensitive point in Russian-Finnish relations.
In her speech in the meeting, President Halonen highlighted that the active cooperation on the people-to-people’s level remains unchanged despite the economic crisis. As example, she noted that the number of Finnish visas issued to Russians in 2009 reached 740,000 – a new record.
As reported by BarentsObserver, Finnish-Russian trade relations in 2009 experienced a serious drop of almost 50 percent. While trade turnover between the country in 2008 amounted to 22.38 billion USD, the turnover in 2009 was only 13,11 billion USD.
