German and Russian Trade Relations Focus on Energy

Russia is one of Germany's biggest trading partners, said representatives of German business on Saturday at the Petersburg dialogue forum.

The total trade volume between the two countries in 2002 reached USD 10 billion. According to German businessmen the primary questions of cooperation between Germany and Russia concern the areas of energy and trade of energy resources, gas extraction, ecology and energy savings.

Germany gives particular attention to questions of increasing the delivery of gas from Russia. On the strength of this priority in the near future there will be created aRussia-Ukraine-Germany Gas Consortium and a gas pipeline from Russia to Europe along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

According to representatives of German business, the most important point for Russia is energy savings where there is concentrated huge potential for economy of energy resources. In spite of the clear economic impact, energy savings technology has not found the needed application in Russia because of lower than world-standard domestic prices for gas and oil products.