Palestine plans to expand cooperation with Russia - ambassador

MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. Palestine plans to expand trade and economic cooperation with Russia, in particular in such areas as energy, agriculture, health and pharmaceuticals, Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal said on Sunday. "There are a number of positions we want to improve. We have possibilities to expand exports of farming products and in exchange adopt Russia’s experience in the energy sector. The Jordan’s West Bank is our resource potential for building electricity plants. We also plan to develop a pharmaceutical cluster," he told the LifeNews television channel. "It will make it possible to expand mutual trade to several hundred million U.S. dollars a year." Palestine "will cooperate with Russia, regardless of whether the West likes it or not," the Palestinian diplomat underscored. "We think that the anti-Russian sanctions are not fair and hope that Russia would overcome this challenge dully." He said Palestine planned to open a trading centre in Moscow to sell its national products and present its history, culture and geography in exhibition pavilions. "It will be a standing international exhibition and a B2B platform for expanding business contacts between entrepreneurs from our countries," Abdel Hafiz Nofal said. Trade between Russia and Palestine surged by 80 percent in 2014, to 1.5 million U.S. dollars. Since May 2013, the high-level working group has been holding consultations on economic and investment issues. Russia and Palestine also have an intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation, which is tasked to invigorate cooperation in the energy sector, in agriculture, tourism and investments. The Russian-Palestinian Business Council has been working since 2009. Read more