A partnership in continuous development, with new economic opportunities linked with Moscow’s new membership in the WTO and the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union, against a backdrop of EU cooperation and an Euro-Asian Union project to create a common economic and human area “from the Atlantic to the Pacific”: this, in brief, was the sense of the joint communiqué signed today in Moscow at the end of the 13th Italo-Russian Economic Cooperation Council by co-chairmen Minister Giulio Terzi and Vice Premier Arkadi Dvorkovich.
Major new opportunities for Italo-Russian interaction
Citing “with satisfaction that the strategic partnership between Italy and Russia is steadily developing and deepening”, the note underscored that “Russia’s entry into the WTO creates a increasingly predictable and transparent legal dimension for business development, encouraging the further growth of trade and investments”. Moreover, “major new opportunities could be created for interaction between Italy and Russia” by the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union.
The Council communqué recognised the “crucial importance of European Union integration and of Euro-Asian integration” in efforts to avoid the creation of “lines of division” in Europe and, instead, reinforce dialogue and cooperation. In that way “economic operators can invest and trade in as homogeneous as possible a legal dimension, creating at the same time a platform for the circulation of goods, investments, persons and ideas comprising a common economic and human area from the Atlantic to the Pacific”
The need was also pointed out for the implementation “of all possible measures for the promotion and increase of trade and investments between Italy and Russia with the help of specialised institutions, including development agencies and financial institutes, as well as Economic Cooperation Council work groups ,, hose efforts aim for the solution to concrete problems”.
Importance of scientific and technological cooperation
Within the context of the initiative for strengthening bilateral relations, the Council recognised “the particular importance of scientific and technological cooperation”, underlining the need to maintain a regime of maximum facilitation in the issuance of visas, not least in order to foster the growth of joint projects”.
Terzi stressed the need to “encourage the dynamism of smaller companies, alleviating the difficulties caused by customs barriers, complex bureaucracy and penalizing tax norms”. Italy is relying heavily on the effects of the customs agreement to be signed in the coming days that, as Terzi pointed out, “I hope will be implemented as soon as possible”. Additionally, in the near future, Russia’s membership in the WTO, the Winter 2014 Olympics in Soci and the 2018 World Soccer Cup “will create new potential for Italian businesses”.
