MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Russia and Chile committed to boost trade and defence cooperation

Russia wants close links with Latam and Chile is the springboard

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and visiting Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet said during a meeting at the Kremlin that they were committed to bolster their countries bilateral ties in different areas, including trade and defence cooperation. Both leaders signed a joint declaration and two cooperation accords in culture and defence.

At the end of her four day visit to Russia Ms Bachelet said her meeting with Medvedev had been “most useful and promising”.

”Trade between Chile and Russia, approximately 400 million US dollars annually is still modest but has enormous growth potential. There’s no relation between our economies and the level of trade” she said pointing out to the fact that an important delegation of Chilean business representatives had travelled with her to Moscow.

“We’ll also expand ... our relationship in the defence area, and the agreement we’ve signed will be an important tool for cooperation in that area” she added but did not proved details of what area of defence.

A source close to Russian arms exporters had told the Interfax news agency last week that “Chile has shown interest in the new modified Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters, as well as in the helicopter equipped with Ka-31 early-warning radars.”

Medvedev, for his part, told reporters that Russia was not ruling out the possibility of signing a free-trade agreement with Chile.

“Naturally, we’ll study this matter and we’ll see to what degree (it makes sense now) ... but for the future I’m not ruling anything out” Medvedev said.

The Russian leader underlined that Moscow would be looking to making the most of relations with Chile, “as a springboard to promote relations with other nations” of Latinamerica.

“Russia has not had a full presence in all the Latin American countries; in our relations there were different periods (both good and bad) and now Moscow intends to establish with the Latin American nations full, deep and mutually beneficial ties,” he said.

Medvedev added that there are “very good prospects” for improved cooperation with Chile in areas such as energy and telecommunications.

He also referred to the possible provision of equipment for Chilean hydroelectric power stations and said there are “promising” prospects for the supply of transport aircraft and urban vehicles, both conventional and electric-powered.

The two leaders also discussed the global financial crisis and the G-20 economic summit Thursday in London.

Bachelet said that while globalization has thus far had a “positive face” and Chile has benefited from an open world economy, the crisis has shown there are also inherent risks that require global responses.

The joint declaration expressed the two countries rejection of the United States’ decades-old trade embargo on Cuba and called for the full integration of the Castro family regime into regional, multilateral organizations.

President Bachelet four-day visit to Russia also included a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

“We are very aware of the speed of Chilean development and the possibilities of its economy and we’re interested in increasing the level of our trade and cooperation” indicated Premier Putin.