Pavlo Rozenko: Saudi Arabia is our important and promising partner
On November 23, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko held a bilateral meeting with Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Eng. Abdulrahman bin Abdulmohsen Al-Fadley.
"Over the past years, the dialogue between Ukraine and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been intensified at all levels, which certainly contributes to the development of cooperation between our friendly states in all areas of mutual interest. Saudi Arabia is the leading country in the Middle East and we consider this country to be our important and promising partner", Pavlo Rozenko said.
During the meeting, the parties discussed a number of issues related to the development of trade and economic partnership between the two states.
According to the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, the establishment of a political dialogue between Ukraine and Saudi Arabia, as well as the regular holding of joint meetings of the Intergovernmental Ukrainian-Saudi Commission for Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation in 2017-2018 create favorable conditions for deepening trade and economic cooperation. "In particular, this concerns the realization of existing potential in such areas as investment, energy, construction, aerospace, agriculture, commerce, medicine, education, research and tourism. In our opinion, these sectors are the most promising ones for development of cooperation ", Pavlo Rozenko stressed.
"I am pleased to note that according to the results of the first nine months of this year. the trade turnover between our countries increased by 12.3%," he emphasized.
The Vice Prime Minister noted that Ukraine praises the Ukrainian-Saudi cooperation in the aviation industry, including the creation of the AN-132D aircraft, whose demonstration flights took place in 2017 within the framework of international aviation exhibitions in France and the United Arab Emirates. According to him, this project opens the prospects of long-term mutually beneficial partnership between our countries in this field.
The sides also discussed cooperation in the agricultural sector, which is currently one of the key areas for bilateral trade and economic cooperation between countries. In particular, it was about the acquisition in September 2018 by the leading Saudi state-owned company SALIC (Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company) of the Ukrainian agroholding Mriya,which became the largest contract in the agrarian sector since the independence of Ukraine.
The Vice Prime Minister also noted that Ukraine is interested in deepening interaction in such areas of humanitarian cooperation as education, medicine and tourism, and emphasized the importance of activating bilateral contacts favorable for citizens of visa policy between the states.