Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr I. Khalilova / Russia's Vice-Prime Minister on Foreign Economic Affairs, the director of Russian Government's Administration, Sergey Naryshkin, will visit Azerbaijan on 31 August to 1 September, Russian Federation's trade representative to Azerbaijan, Yuri Shchedrin, reported on 24 August.
The co-chairmen of Azerbaijani-Russian inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation will meet during the visit. Russian section of the commission is headed by Naryshkin and Azerbaijani by the First Vice-Prime Minister, Yagub Eyyubov.
According to Shchedrin, the head of Russian Government will also discuss the state and prospects of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, the problems in Azerbaijani-Russian relationships, will precise the date for the next meeting of the inter-governmental commission scheduled to Moscow, October.
The main problem in the trade between the countries is the necessity to fill the deficit in the sum of $450-500mln which appeared in result of suspension of natural gas supplies from Russia from 1 January 2007 with high VAT goods. For the time being 30% in goods turnover comprise machine and technical equipment. Supplies of construction materials and foodstuffs from Russia are also increasing.
"We compensate losses proceeding from suspension in Russia's gas supplies with high VAT goods in order to fulfil the task put by the Presidents, which is to achieve $2bln trade turnover," he said.