Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed on the second stage of the road map for the development of scientific, technical and economic cooperation. The document was adopted at the end of the seventh meeting of the intergovernmental commission held on Tuesday via videoconference, the Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh reports.
According to the newspaper, the adopted document includes more than 50 projects in 60 different areas of cooperation, thus tripling the number of existing programs in the current phase of the road map, which will last until 2023. The agreement reached will be implemented as part of the implementation of the high-level Russian-Saudi Strategic Cooperation Program adopted on October 14, 2019, the publication points out.
At the meeting, which was co-chaired by the kingdom's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, both sides stressed the importance of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's visit to Moscow in October 2017 and Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Riyadh in October 2019.
According to the Saudi Energy Minister, the work of the joint committee is under close scrutiny and enjoys great support from the king as well as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. The Saudi Minister also expressed the view that the current level of partnership between Riyadh and Moscow is the strongest in the history of bilateral relations.
During the meeting, the newspaper stressed, the sides discussed the development of relations in 11 different areas, including health, energy, space, industry and tourism.
Earlier on Tuesday, Novak said Russia and Saudi Arabia aim to increase trade turnover to $5 billion by 2024 by liberalizing mutual trade and preferences. According to the deputy prime minister, first of all, we are talking about a free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and the Cooperation Council of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. In addition, Novak informed during the meeting of the intergovernmental commission that Russia offers Saudi Arabia cooperation in the field of nuclear energy in third countries, including the design of nuclear power plants (NPPs) with small reactors.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS