Russia, Asean mulling business summit in November

KUALA LUMPUR, August 5. /TASS/. A new summit of top business executives from Russia and Asean nations may be held in November 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday at a Russia-Asean ministerial conference. He indicated that the high level of political interaction offered a fair ground for building up economic ties. "Along with it, our joint potential is not utilized in full yet and we support the proposals to step up action on a roadmap for trade and investment that was adopted in 2012," Lavrov said. "We propose to augment it with new well-specified projects. Hopefully, a detailed discussion of the issue will be held at a Russia-Asean conference of economics minister here in Kuala Lumpur on August 25." "An agreement on a free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) and Vietnam was signed in May," Lavrov said. "We’re ready to make it a pilot project for a general liberalization (of trade and investment - TASS) between the EEC and Asean." "Business missions to Southeast-Asian countries have become regular and the plans for the rest of this month feature missions to Malaysia and Brunei," he said. "Currently we’re working on a new Russia-Asean business summit that will be held in Kuala Lumpur in November." Lavrov called attention to a smoothly functioning mechanism of the conferences that bring together senior officials from Russia and Asean countries who discuss the struggle with cross-border crime. "We propose to append the mandate of this workgroup with the measures to counter money-laundering, the financing of terrorism, drugs trafficking and cybercrime," he said. Read more