A DAY after President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he would visit Russia on May 25, Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev said the visit will signal the start of “a new bilateral partnership between Philippines and Russia based on equality and mutual respect.”
“Our aim is to build a new bilateral partnership between Philippines and Russia based on equality and mutual respect,” he said, stressing Moscow’s seriousness in comprehensive cooperation with the Philippines.
“We will create necessary favorable conditions for a substantial enhancement of our bilateral relations on different areas including political dialogue, trade and investment, security and defense, education, culture, science and technology. Everything,” the envoy said at a forum in Makati City.
Already, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry earlier met with a delegation from Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Transport and Russian companies expressed interest in investing in the transportation and energy sectors.
“We are also interested to hire highly qualified people from your country,” Khovaev said. “Highly-skilled workers, engineers and business managers as well because as far as I know the Philippines is able to export not only housemaids or nurses but also highly qualified specialists.”
“We need to sign a number of bilateral agreements to adequately protect the legitimate right of workers and of employees and employers,” he said.
The envoy also called on Philippine businessmen to discover the possibilities in Russia. “I’m calling on all Filipino business people, please be more active, aggressive in exploring business possibilities in Russia.”
“It’s time for Filipinos to discover Russia and it’s time for Russians to discover Philippines. Please consider Russia as a neighbor. We’re not really far from each other,” he added.
Last month, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev visited the Philippines and met with Duterte in Davao City to discuss defense and security cooperation agreements that may be forged during the President’s visit to Moscow.
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said the discussions between Duterte and Patrushev included “future government-to-government cooperation” in the areas of security and intelligence, defense and military, law enforcement, the fight against drugs, transnational crime, and terrorism.
“Memorandum of Understanding on these fields are being finalized by concerned agencies and are expected to be signed during the planned President’s visit to Moscow,” Esperon said.
Meanwhile, the Philippines and Russia are set to hold the first session of the Philippines Russia Joint Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation which was created to improve bilateral relations.
Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo met with Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexander Tsybulskiy last month to discuss various areas of cooperation that will be discussed in the first session.
“The inaugural session is scheduled to convene in the first half of 2017 in Manila in preparation for the visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Russia,” the DTI said in a statement.
“The engagement has generated strong private sector interest and we see great prospects for collaboration in many areas,” Rodolfo said.
