MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged Moscow and Washington on Tuesday to enhance transparency in order to boost investment and bilateral trade for a "better future."
Obama addressed a bilateral economic forum in Moscow on the second day of his official visit to Russia.
"In order to achieve this better future we are going to have to do some work... we have to promote transparency, accountability and rule of law on which investments and economic
growth depend," Obama said.
He lamented that Russia's share of U.S. trade was still no bigger than at the end of the Cold War.
"Total trade between our countries is just 36 billion dollars. America's trade is only about one percent of all our trade with the world, one percent, a percent that is virtually unchanged since the Cold War," Obama told the forum.
Speaking about the "reset" at the center of the Obama administration's Russia policy, the president said it should concern both nations, not just the two presidents.
He described as excellent prospects for bilateral trade, especially taking into account the business experience of his Russian counterpart. President Dmitry Medvedev was previously chairman of the board at Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Speaking to the economic forum before Obama, Medvedev also urged the two countries' businesses to boost cooperation.
"I believe that the more stable our business contacts are, the easier it will be for us to communicate on other issues, including the most serious problems on the international agenda and our bilateral ties," he said.
The Russian president went on to highlight major bilateral projects - both past and present.
"Fifty years have passed since [Pepsi co-founder and CEO] Don Kendall treated [Soviet leader] Nikita Khrushchev with Pepsi, and it has been almost 40 years that we have been drinking it," Medvedev said, before mentioning more recent projects.
A joint venture between Russian titanium producer VSMPO-Avisma and U.S. Boeing was announced earlier in the day, and Medvedev also referred to a joint project to build a heavy cargo plane initiated by the Volga-Dnepr airline.
He added that America's John Deere, "which supplied equipment to the tsarist Russia," was building an agricultural machinery plant in Kaluga, a city almost 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Moscow.
At Monday's meeting with Obama the two presidents agreed that Russian and American business leaders should take every opportunity to boost economic contacts. Obama and Medvedev also established a bilateral presidential commission on Monday.
