The United States and Russia announced Thursday they will launch formal talks this year to discuss growing trade and investment links, which include US plans to import Russian nuclear fuel.Washington will host the first meeting in the spring and delegates from both the public and private sector will participate in the new dialogue, according to a joint statement released by the State Department.
In a sign of their deepening ties, the US Commerce Department announced separately that the United States will import Russian nuclear fuel under a deal to be signed at Dulles International Airport near here on Friday.
The joint statement said the dialogue reflected new economic trends.
"Given the increased investment and trade between our two countries, and Russia's growing importance in the world economy, the United States and Russia will establish a formal economic dialogue to discuss issues of mutual interest," it added.
On Friday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergey Kiriyenko will "sign a long-term suspension agreement governing trade in nuclear fuel," the Commerce Department said.
The deal "will provide US utilities with a reliable supply of nuclear fuel by allowing Russia to export, while minimizing any disruption to the United States' domestic enrichment industry," it said in a statement.
The developments come despite Russia's recent clashes with the United States and Europe over political issues such as the status of Kosovo and US missile defense plans and on economic issues related to Russia's WTO accession. Speaking in Saint Petersburg in June last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a revolution in world economic relations, saying institutions created by the West were "archaic, undemocratic and inflexible."
Russia demonstrated its new economic clout during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum by agreeing to investment deals worth 13.5 billion dollars (10 billion euros), forum organizers said.
Putin stressed Russia's openness to foreign investment and increasing integration into the world economy, saying Russia had invested 140 billion dollars (105 billion euros) abroad in 2006, nearly equal to the 150 billion dollars of incoming investment.
Among the deals signed at the forum were a more than three-billion-dollar contract by Aeroflot to buy 22 passenger planes from US jetmaker Boeing, and 18 contracts between Russia and China worth over one billion dollars.
Source: Agence France Presse
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