Location Bratislava The 16th session of the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation between the Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation took place in Moscow on March 4 and 5, 2013. Official 20 members delegation was led by Miroslav Lajcak, the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Committee and co-chair of the commission. Co-chair of the commission for the Russian party is Dmitry Rogozin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. Robert Šimončič, SARIO and other representatives of the agency attended the conference as the expert part of the Slovak delegation including representatives of government institutions, companies and academic village. During the meeting of the expanded Slovakia-Russia Business Council the representatives of SARIO presented investment potential of Slovakia. Most promising sectors for cooperation development for Slovakia are energy, trade, investment, tourism and military-technical industries. Also B2B meetings took place during the session of the Intergovernmental Commission. These meetings of Russian and Slovak business partners should result in signing several agreements. The Russian Federation is for Slovakia one of the largest trading partners outside the European Union. Interim results of our mutual foreign trade last year, according to the Statistical Office, indicate steady growth. For ten months of 2012 mutual foreign trade reached 6.931 billion euros, which indicates growth by 3.8% year-on-year. Slovak export to Russia for this period increased by 26.3% to 2.126 billion euros. SARIO strives to use the potential of Slovak-Russian business relations also by the establishment of SARIO´s representative office in Astrakhan and Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
