OREANDA-NEWS. November 12, 2013. In 2013 the trade turnover between Ukraine and Armenia has increased by 5% and totaled 117.1 million USD for seven months of this year. This was announced by Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Olexandr Vilkul at the 7th meeting of the Joint Ukrainian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation.

"Ukraine is steadily implementing the course of European integration. Thus we continue to develop relationships with our strategic partners, one of which is Armenia. In 2013 the trade turnover between the two countries increased by 5% and for seven months of this year totaled 117.1 million USD. A promising direction is the deepening cooperation in the industrial sector, nuclear energy, agriculture and transport," Vice Prime Minister said.

"Armenia plans to build a new nuclear power plant on its territory. Engineering of Ukraine has great potential for the production and supply of main equipment, except reactor elements necessary for construction and operation of nuclear power plants. Therefore, the participation of Ukrainian companies in the production of equipment for the construction nuclear power plant, as well as direct participation in the building of the NPP can be very important,"- said Alexander Vilkul.

Bilateral cooperation in transport, especially rail transport, develops dynamicly. As of October this year, the volume of rail traffic totaled 127 630 tons, by 63.9% over the same period last year. In road transport, the number of permits for 2013 amounts to 2600 on each side, which fully meets the demand of carriers of Ukraine and Armenia. The strategic issue is the increasing in regular flights. Today 3 Ukrainian airlines have permissions on flights.

The Ukrainian side also expressed its interest in developing bilateral trade of agricultural products, namely supply to Armenia domestic dairy and poultry products and cooperation in breeding seed. Enhancing cooperation programs in science and technology will implement joint research projects and support the development of partnerships between the scientific communities of both countries. It is also important and preparation of bilateral agreements in the field of environmental protection, phytosanitary, protocol on exchange of information on cargo and vehicles are transported across the customs border of Ukraine and Armenia.

"Armenia considers Ukraine its one of the biggest foreign trade partners. Your country is in the top five countries that import their products to Armenia. We are interested in the fact that Ukrainian companies come to our construction and agricultural markets. One of the promising directions of our cooperation is also tourism. I see the Ukrainian economy moving by the way of reform to be ready for all the new realities that currently exist in the world. This once again proves the reliability of our partnership," the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia, the Head of Armenian Part of Joint Ukrainian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation.