Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has met early today with the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Serbia Alexander Chepurin, and the two have talked about improving the general economic relations of the two countries and manners to increase the trade volume.

Deputy Prime Minister Rasim Ljajić has said he is happy with the fact that the trade between the two countries in the first five months of the year has increased by 16 per cent compared to the same period last year, and that even 815 Serbian companies export to Russia, which is the largest number so far.

Mr Ljajić has added that there are potentials for further improvement of economic cooperation and that it is necessary to continue with the negotiations in September on concluding the free-trade agreements between Serbia and the Eurasian Union Member States.

There were talks about the possibility of creating joint companies in the field of agriculture, to manufacture in Serbia, and then to export to the Russian market and the markets of third countries.

Ambassador Alexander Chepurin has suggested that in autumn at some of numerous agricultural fairs in Russia we should organise a meeting of suppliers from our country with big Russian distribution chains, in order to increase the number of products from Serbia on the market of Moscow and other big cities.

Mr Chepurin has stressed that Russian tourists come to Serbia more often and that in the first months there were 17 per cent of them more than in the same period in 2016. He expressed his hope that the number will go up once we have the flight lines Niš-Kaluga in September this year.