Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev met with Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson in Ottawa on Tuesday to update foreign investment rules and technology standards that they say have hampered trade.
"Our countries could become very long-term stable partners,'' Gordeyev said through a translator in remarks to open the meeting with Emerson. "Oil and gas could become an area of cooperation between our two countries."
''We're not going to hide the fact that Russia has gone through a transition period,'' Gordeyev said, The Canadian Press reported. "All of this is behind us. There is now a modern legislative framework in place ... and we are becoming a comprehensible and open economy.''
Executives from PetroCanada, Gazprom, Bombardier and Aeroflot were also at the two-day summit, which finished Tuesday and was designed to boost the 2.25 billion Canadian dollars ($1.94 billion) of annual trade between Canada and Russia. The event brought together about 200 business executives from both countries, the news agency reported.
"There is plenty of room to make more of the Russian-Canadian trade relationship,'' Emerson said. Canada wants to develop trade with Russia in energy and mining, Emerson said. New rules could jump-start projects between the countries' "complementary" economies and help create a global network of energy supplies, he said.
The ministers are also working to increase trade in other goods and services, such as forestry products and banking.
Canadian exports to Russia rose by 54 percent last year to 870 million Canadian dollars ($750 million), and foreign direct investment by Canadian firms in Russia amounts to less than 200 million Canadian dollars ($170 million), the news agency reported.
