(Itar-Tass) -- Slovakia's President Ivan Gasparovic will arrive on an official visit in Russia on Monday. During his Russian visit he will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on November 7, a Kremlin official told Itar-Tass. Meanwhile, the Slovak leader is expected to visit Omsk, where he will attend the opening ceremony of the Russian-Slovak tyre production joint venture Matador-Omskshina. Gasparovic will also visit Krasnoyarsk, where he will take part in the business forum.
The talks between Putin and Gasparovic will focus on further development of trade-economic ties, the Kremlin official emphasized. According to him, the bilateral trade increased by 58.5 percent for eight months of 2006 as compared with the same period in 2005 and reached 3.7 billion dollars, as this figure was 3.9 billion dollars for the whole year 2005, reports Trend.
During the visit a possible conclusion of new long-term contracts for the supply and transit of Russian energy carriers will be discussed, the Kremlin source said, noting that Moscow attaches an important significance to energy cooperation. Slovakia is a strategic European state for the transit of Russian natural gas, he recalled. Big joint infrastructure projects are also on the agenda of the visit. Several Russian organisations, particularly Atomstroiexport, Tekhnomashexport, will involve in the modernization of the Slovak nuclear power plants in Mochovce, Jaslovske Bohunice, the Vojany thermal power plant, and in the construction of hydropower plants, electric power plants and power lines.
The bilateral cooperation in high-tech industries has good prospects, the Kremlin official remarked. The construction of an international laser center and a cyclotron center in Bratislava is nearing completion by joint efforts, in military-technical cooperation fighters MiG-29, which the Slovak Air Force is armed with, are being upgraded, he indicated.
During the talks the presidents of the countries are also expected to discuss topical issues of the international agenda, particularly considering Slovakia's non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council in 2006-2007, the Kremlin expert noted. The interlocutors will exchange views on the prospects of developing relations between Russia and the European Union and NATO, and the stabilization in crisis regions, he added.
During the visit of the Slovak president an intergovernmental agreement on ensuring mutual interests in the use and allocation of the rights on the results of intellectual activity and an interdepartmental agreement on cooperation in education are planned to be signed, the Russian presidential administration official said.