Russia invites Singapore to invest in power plant construction.

27/9 Tass 181

SINGAPORE, September 27 (Itar-Tass) - Russia could invite Singapore to
invest in its contracts for the construction of nuclear power plants in
third countries, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin said on
Monday in the opening remarks at the first plenary session of the
top-level Russian-Singaporean intergovernmental commission.
"The energy sphere, including atomic energy, is rather promising,"
Sobyanin said. He stressed that the two sides could cooperate not only on
the construction of nuclear power plants directly in Singapore, but said
there are "also possibilities of joint investments in third countries of
the Asia-Pacific region, where Russia has contracts for the construction
of nuclear power plants".
"We could invite our Singaporean colleagues to invest in those
promising and serious projects," Sobyanin believes.
He stressed that the setting up of the intergovernmental commission
was not accidental, because relations, including economic ones, between
Russia and Singapore have reached a level necessitating the setting up of
a new intergovernmental mechanism to coordinate that process and advance
it.
"We have understood that relations between our countries are
important, systemic and promising. This is, of course, a new level of
coordination of bilateral relations," the deputy prime minister said.
Sobyanin said it is important to launch within the framework of the
commission a dialogue between governmental agencies and commercial
companies operating on the markets of Russia and Singapore. "This will
make it possible to widely use opportunities to develop state-private
partnership," he added.
Sobyanin said trade between Russia and Singapore develops dynamically,
although its amount is not big yet, but still one of the biggest in Russia'
s relations with countries situated in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, in
2009 trade grew 22 percent, and 43 percent over the past seven months.
"This testifies to its potential and development possibility," he
explained.
According to Sobyanin, such major Russian companies as Gazprom,
Rosneft, Renova, LUKOIL, Alphabank, Sberbank, VTB, Troika-Dialog and
others demonstrate interest in cooperation with Singapore.
Sobyanin said that the experience of Singapore in setting up
innovation centres is of interest. "We will cooperate on the Skolkovo
innovation centre, the ROSNANO state corporation is interested in
establishing close cooperation with venture and innovation companies of
Singapore," the deputy prime minister said.
Focusing on talks with Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong,
Sobyanin said they had discussed issues of management and investments, the
setting up of different free economic zones, such as tourist, industrial,
scientific-technological. "Already now Singaporean business actively
participates in the development of such zones in Tomsk and Yelabuga," he
said, adding that the sides consider prospects to set up such zones in
other regions, in particular in Perm and in the Far East.
The intergovernmental commission could pay more attention to updating
the legal framework of bilateral relations. "It is necessary to speed up
talks on a draft agreement on scientific-technical cooperation, visa-free
trips for holders of diplomatic and service passports, military-technical
cooperation as well as on a number of interdepartmental agreements," the
Russian official said.
Russia is interested in boosting cooperation with Singapore on
healthcare, education and culture. "Singapore has accumulated a unique
experience of building efficient models of management in those spheres,
and we are extremely interested in attracting that experience," he said.
Sobyanin stressed that the commission faces important tasks concerning
the implementation of educational programs, an expansion of cultural and
tourism exchanges among many other issues.
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