Russia’s premier expects Vietnam visit to boost bilateral ties

HANOI, April 6. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday he expected his visit to Vietnam to boost bilateral relationships. "We always like to visit Vietnam and I expect each such visit to bring our relationships to a new level," the Russian premier said at a meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. Medvedev said the Russian leadership expected Vietnam’s president at the May 9 celebrations in Moscow devoted to the 70th anniversary of the Soviet’s Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The Russian premier said Russia and Vietnam had signed a host of important documents on Monday related to the development of bilateral economic and humanitarian cooperation. Russia invites Vietnamese companies to hydrocarbon projects Moscow has prepared a special proposal for companies from Vietnam to participate in hydrocarbon projects in Russia, Medvedev said in an interview with Vietnamese media ahead of his visit to the Southeast Asian country. "We invite foreign partners to take part in exploration and production in the Russian Federation only rarely. The system is working smoothly as it is. This option has been devised especially for our Vietnamese partners," the Russian premier said. Russia and Vietnam should consider new, promising forms of cooperation, such as refining rather than extraction alone and the use of various incentives to encourage joint work on the continental shelf of both countries, Medvedev said. "We should use various incentivising mechanisms, including taxes, because the reserves have been depleted where we have been working and it’s necessary either to drill deeper wells or to look for new fields, which, naturally, calls for additional investment," the Russian premier said. Russia’s Zarubezhneft and Vietnam’s PetroVietnam are already implementing joint projects while Rosneft and Gazprom have partners of their own in Vietnam and each has been negotiating cooperation agreements, Medvedev said. "Rosneft has projects for a set of offshore blocks that can be offered for development. Talks are ongoing and I hope they’ll have a positive outcome," the Russian premier said. "At the same time, Gazprom has been engaged in negotiations since 2009. The degree of maturity on that contract is much higher. Hopefully the Gazprom-Vietnam project will be up and running at full capacity by 2016," Medvedev said. Read more