Rustam Minnikhanov: The agreement between Tatarstan and Saxony will give a new impetus to the development of our cooperation

On February 19, in Dresden, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, who arrived on a one-day working visit in Germany, and Prime Minister of Saxony Michael Kretschmer signed an agreement between Tatarstan and the German Federal State of Saxony on interregional cooperation in the trade and economic, scientific, technical and cultural areas.

At the meeting with the Prime Minister, Minnikhanov expressed his confidence that this agreement will give a new impetus to bilateral cooperation between the regions, aimed at strengthening Russian-German relations.

Tatarstan President emphasized that Tatarstan has solid experience in cooperating with Saxony. There were a lot of mutual visits of official and business delegations. Today, there is a Tatarstan-Saxon working group. Tatarstan delegations take part in the Leipzig Trade Fair. The republic cooperates with Saxony partners in a number of areas, in particular, in the machine-building complex, petrochemistry and energy. Special attention is paid to cooperation between universities.

Minnikhanov emphasized that Germany is a strategic partner of the Russian Federation and Tatarstan in particular. “For the last years, the mutual trade turnover between Germany and Tatarstan has reached 2 billion US dollars. We have maintained good relations with German companies. We are planning to implement a number of major projects. I am sure that Saxony and Tatarstan have great potential and we will be able to fulfill it. One of the key tasks of the leadership is to establish a good environment for business development. Economic relations have a positive impact on the political affairs in the future,” Tatarstan President said.

Minnikhanov informed the Prime Minister about the economic and industrial development of the republic and indicated the key area, namely, oil production, oil refining, petrochemistry, engineering and agriculture. Among the promising areas of cooperation, Minnikhanov emphasized the sphere of the digital economy. “Your country, including Saxony, has solid experience in the issues of digitalization of enterprises, improving labour and production efficiency,” he said.