Putin to hold talks with Indonesian president in Sochi

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will go to Sochi where he will hold several bilateral international meetings and talks on the sidelines of the Russia-ASEAN summit in the next few days. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said that Putin’s schedule will be very busy. Meetings and talks will start on May 18 when Indonesian President Joko Widodo makes an official visit to Russia on Putin’s invitation. It is expected that the two leaders will hold bilateral talks on May 18 and take part in the Russia-ASEAN summit on May 19-20. Russian-Indonesian talks This will be the second bilateral meeting between Putin and Widodo. They already met on 10 November 2014 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperatinon (APEC) forum in Beijing. The Russian leader visited Indonesia twice - with an official visit in 2007 and in the framework of the APEC summit in Bali in 2013. Ushakov noted that regular political dialogue is established between the two countries. Close contacts are maintained in the framework of the foreign ministries, Russian Security Council, security agencies. Inter-parliamentarian ties are also consistently developing. He reminded about the operation of the Inter-governmental commission on trade and economic and technical cooperation that held its 10th session in April 2015 in Russia’s Kazan. The next session of the commission is planned to take place in October 2016 in Indonesia. According to the presidential aide, special attention at upcoming talks will be paid to issues of developing bilateral trade and economic cooperation. "Under the influence of negative external factors, bilateral trade turnover decreased by 23 percent last year and stood at almost $2 billion. However, according to data for this year (January-March 2016), the tendency of growth can be seen - by 13.4 percent (to $638.6 million)," Ushakov said. He added that 55.3 percent of Indonesian export to Russia are agricultural and fish products. Among Russian exports are chemical industry products (39.9 percent), oil and oil products (27.1 percent) and metals (10.4 percent). Russia and Indonesia have close business ties. Russian companies are implementing several large investment projects in the country. In particular, Russian railways company is participating in the construction project of a railroad on Kalimantan Island that will be used to transport coal from deposits to port terminals. The railroad will be 190 kilometers long, around $1.9 billion were invested in it. Rusal company plans to participate in the project on constructing a bauxite and alumina refinery on West Kalimantan and modernizing an aluminum plant. Moreover, Russia’s Inter RAO and Indonesia’s Transasia Minerals plan to build a thermal power plant with 1.8 GW capacity in Indonesia. Investment is expected to stand at $2.8 billion. Russia’s Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation is working on the project of building an experimental reactor of small capacity (10 MW) in Indonesian by 2019. If Indonesia adopts a program on developing its nuclear energy, Rosatom is ready to join the process of implementing it. Ushakov noted that emergency response is a promising cooperation sphere. On the request of Indonesia, Russian Emergencies Ministry took part in the search and rescue operation in the Java Sea in January 2015 after an AirAsia aircraft crash. In October-November last year, the ministry participated in extinguishing fires on Kalimantan and Sumatra islands. "Russia and Indonesia have close or equal positions on major international issues, constructively cooperate in UN, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, APEC, G20, East Asia Summit, in the framework of Russia-ASEAN Dialogue Partnership," Ushakov said. "Several bilateral documents are planned to be signed after the visit in the context of improving the juridical base of the relations," he added. Putin to hold talks with AIIB head In the framework of Russia-ASEAN summit, Putin will also meet with President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Jin Liqun for the first time. The Russian presidential aide reminded that AIIB was set up on China’s initiative, and it started working on 16 January 2016. China, India and Russia are biggest AIIB’s shareholders with shares of 29.78, 8.37 and 6.54 percent respectively. Ushakov said that Putin and Liqun will discuss bank’s activities and its participation in financing projects on Russia’s territory. "The issue is being considered now - and it will be discussed at the Russian president’s meeting with Jin Liqun - on providing the post of the bank’s vice-president for Russia. I will tell you that we will nominate our trade representative in Beijing Alexey Gruzdev to this post," he noted. Russia-ASEAN summit The Russia-ASEAN summit will be held in Sochi on May 19-20 and will become the biggest international event in Russia in 2016. The summit will be held under the slogan "Towards Strategic Partnership for the Sake of the Common Good." The summit is expected to adopt a declaration that will lay the basis for an action plan of Russia-ASEAN cooperation in the political, economic and cultural spheres, as well as in the sphere of security. Russia has been a dialog partner of ASEAN since July 1996. Similar partnership summits are normally held on the territory of member-states and the choice of Sochi as venue for the Russia-ASEAN summit on the partnership’s 20th anniversary is symbolic. Read more