MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires/Moscow close ties are “a fact, not a wish”, says Argentine minister Kicillof

Kicillof pointed out that bilateral trade with Russia has increased 1,000% in recent years showing the two economies easily complement each other.

Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof speaking from Moscow said ties between Buenos Aires and Russia were “a fact, not a wish” praising the bilateral “natural understanding” and “complementation”, achieved by the two partners in economic, energy and trade affairs.

 “Tighter ties between Russia and Latin America and Russia and Argentina are not a wish, but a fact. When you analyze past years of bilateral trade, you will find a surprising increase of 1,000%, one that has grown the most in Argentina’s foreign trade,” Kicillof said in Russia where he is currently attending the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum 2015 (SPIEF 2015).

“This last chapter of the world economy has had so called emerging economies as true growth engines; those in Latin America, the Russian (economy), have grown at much more higher rates than the average of the world economy,” Kicillof stated highlighting the increase of what he called the “economic power” of both regions that is “undeniable” turning South-South ties into a “need and not simply a will.”

“It is also true that, unlike other countries of such economic volume as that of Russia’s, there is a huge complementation between both economies. Many of the products Argentina has as exporting surplus are needs for Russian growth, and many products of Russia complement needs to our economy” Kicillof said, describing the bilateral relation “a matter of natural evolution of the world's economic structure and of the solid complementation that exists between the economies.”

Kicillof also said there was an “important political element that in the Argentine-Russian case has been central in taking economic ties to a higher level”. In effect the minister said that a Russian president, in 2010, visited Buenos Aires for the first time, followed by Vladimir’s visit in 2014 and “in April we were with President Cristina Fernández in Moscow strengthening those ties.”

“Like we did with the BRICS, we signed an agreement that takes the strategic, comprehensive relation to a different level, that means the presidents (Cristina Fernandez and Vladimir Putin) considered the relation in the long term,” the economy minister assured.