Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Jan. 31 / Trend, H. Hasanov /
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has received Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boyko, the Turkmen government said today.
Boyko arrived at head of a delegation to participate at the meeting of the intergovernmental Turkmen-Ukrainian commission on economic cooperation. It includes heads and representatives of Ukrainian state and business organisations, including large industrial companies.
It was stressed that Turkmenistan and Ukraine have established the legal framework reflecting the mutual focus on the productive interaction of national economies.
The priority areas are the fuel and energy complex, trade, metallurgy, transportation, town-planning and agriculture.
The area of cooperation in the fuel and energy complex will be discussed in detail in February at a high level. Turkmen media reported earlier that during this period, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will be on a state visit to the Caspian-littoral country.
Experts point out that Kiev sees Turkmenistan as a competitive energy source. Ashgabat, which supplies gas to China, Iran and Russia is interested in new markets including the rapid supply of its energy resources to Europe, including Ukraine.
At this stage, supplies from traditional production areas flowing through Russia (Central Asia-Centre gas pipeline) are below capacity.
The CAC pipeline which runs through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan became the monopoly of the Russian Gazprom after the collapse of the USSR. In 2003, Gazprom signed an agreement for the sale of Turkmen gas for 25 years. As of 2010, under the influence of the global recession Russia reduced purchases from Turkmenistan to 10 bcm of gas which is four times less than in the previous years.
This is greatly stipulated by the fact that Ukraine decreased purchases. Ukraine has recently been looking for a way to get direct deliveries of Turkmen gas. Kiev officials previously expressed their desire to directly purchase about five billion of Turkmen gas annually.
However, such an arrangement requires Russia's permission to use its pipelines. Kiev states that the agreement on the CIS free trade zone contains a clause envisaging equal access to transmission facilities in CIS countries.