Russia and Switzerland boost their ongoing productive cooperation with additional strategic agreements
BERN, Switzerland – President Dmitry Medvedev’s official state visit to Switzerland, the first Russian leader to visit the Alpine nation in their centuries-old history of diplomatic relations, ended with the leaders’ reaffirmation of the ‘strategic character’ of their existing partnership and signing of a myriad of new bilateral accords aimed at further deepening today's level of their cooperation on all aspects of bilateral diplomatic cooperation.
Hans-Rudolf Merz, the federal president of the Swiss Confederation, highly lauded the high level of diplomatic ties with Moscow, specifically noting that the existing bilateral relations with Russia are of ‘strategic importance’ for his country. “This ‘strategic value’ stems from Russia’s huge size, large population, culture and historical developments,” the federal president said at joint press conference with the Russia president that was dedicated to the results of their bilateral talks. “During our talks, we discussed amongst other key topics on the bilateral agenda, the issue of the new security architecture for Europe. And, I need to specially note here that both Russia and Switzerland’s points of view basically coincide on this security issue.”
From his part, Medvedev noted the high level of productivity of the ongoing cooperation between Russia and Switzerland. “Our bilateral cooperation is developing actively on all fronts. But I would like to specifically note fact that Swiss businesses are not only operating in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in other regions of Russia, where the inflows of foreign investments are highly needed today,” he added. “The level of the intensity of the Swiss companies’ activities in Russia is evident in the fact that the total volume of Swiss investments into the Russian economy in 2008 was valued at $4bln., and similarly, the investment activity of Russian companies on the Swiss market is also on the rise, as shown by the volume of their accumulated capital investments in the Swiss economy, which stood at $2.8bln in 2008.”
It was, therefore, not surprising that on a background of such friendly atmosphere and historical ties, dating back to the Russian Empire legendary Army General Alexander Suvorov’s successful military mission in the Alpine nation in 1799, that all the planned complex of issues of mutual cooperation discussed by the Russian and Swiss leaders during their bilateral negotiations, ended productively with the signing of some serious agreements. Specifically, these included the agreements on the simplification of visa issue, readmission and cooperation on issues requiring humanitarian response to accidents and crises as well as collaboration in the field of physical education and sport.
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