Ukraine to double trade turnover with Russia

Ukraine plans to increase the trade turnover with neighboring Russia to more than 50 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2010 from 25.8 billion dollars in 2009, Ukraine's Deputy Economy Minister Valery Muntiyan said on Friday.

"In the first half of 2010 the trade turnover between Ukraine and Russia has grown 68.2 percent compared with the same period of last year. Therefore, we believe that we are able to fulfill the task of increasing the volume of trade twice," Muntiyan told a press briefing in Kiev.

"Twelve joint commissions are working actively on different economic areas to expand Ukrainian-Russian trade activities, including the sectors of energy, transportation, communications, engineering, ship-building and aircraft manufacturing," he noted.

During a visit to Ukraine in May, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stressed Ukrainian-Russian trade turnover should reach 100 billion dollars per year to meet huge potentials between the two countries.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev deteriorated during the presidency of pro-Europe Viktor Yushchenko. Since Ukraine's new President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February, 2010, the normalization of political ties between the two countries has resulted in an improvement of bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Source:Xinhua