Austrian Ambassador named promising areas of cooperation with Bashkiria

The volume of foreign trade turnover between Bashkiria and Austria may return to pre-pandemic levels, but it is impossible to predict when this will happen. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Austria to RUSSIA Johannes Aigner said this in the Delo program on the RBC Ufa TV channel. According to the diplomat, in addition to the covid-19 epidemic , the sanctions policy continues to affect bilateral relations, which is especially noticeable in the field of agriculture.

“Austrian exports to the Republic of Bashkortostan have dropped a lot. Imports remained at more or less the same level. [Among the reasons] in the first place, of course, is the pandemic. In second place, it is impossible not to note the policy of import substitution, especially in the field of agriculture, which is associated with Russian counter-sanctions,” said Johannes Aigner.

The Ambassador called the development of cooperation with the regions of Russia a priority. Joint business projects of Russian and Austrian companies are being implemented in several regions of the Russian Federation.

“Moscow, of course, is a huge and important city, but it is not all of Russia . And personally, I am very interested in getting to know different regions. Our enterprises, our business are represented in many regions of Russia. I have recently been, for example, in Veliky Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Kaluga and other places. Our factories are there. And Ufa is distinguished by a very significant presence of our enterprises,” the diplomat said.