On the 10-11 February the Foreign Minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, Ramtane Lamamra, will visit Moscow at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov. The purpose of the visit of the head of the Algerian Foreign Service is to develop a trustworthy political dialogue and strengthen our mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation in accordance with the Declaration on strategic partnership signed in April 2001.

The visit of Ramtane Lamamra to Moscow will allow a profound exchange of opinions on topical international and regional problems. In particular, there are plans to discuss the situation in Syria and around it, the situation in North Africa and in the Sahara-Sahel region, the Middle East Peace Process, as well as other topics of mutual interest.

The positions of Russia and Algeria are close or match on the majority of key foreign policy issues. Both parties speak in favour of stability and balance of interests in international relations, strengthening of the central role of the UN, respect for the foundation provisions and principles of international law, including the right of peoples to determine their fate on their own without external interference.

Algeria is one of Russia's leading trade and economic partners in Africa and in the Arab world. Our bilateral foreign trade turnover in the first 11 months of 2013 reached 1,567 billion US dollars.

During the forthcoming negotiations, the plan is to develop the state and prospects of further extension of the Russian-Algerian trade and economic cooperation. There are good leads for increasing the efficiency of our interaction in the fuel and energy sector, including in the format of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Moreover, there are still many unused reserves for diversification of our bilateral ties, filling them with new content.

The Mixed intergovernmental Russian-Algerian commission for trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, the sixth session of which was held in Algeria in April 2013, plays a weighty role in the activation of business contacts. During the session, an extensive plan of action in different areas was agreed, the implementation of which should significantly increase useful output, and raise the efficiency and quality of material interaction between economic operators of the two countries.

8 February 2014