Australia Sees Potential Of Cooperation With Russia In Agriculture - Commerce Chamber

Russia and Australia have a lot of opportunities to cooperate economically, and medium and small business from the two countries can work together in the fields of agriculture and and services in particular, Stephen Cartwright, the CEO of Australia's NSW Business Chamber, told Sputnik on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2019) Russia and Australia have a lot of opportunities to cooperate economically, and medium and small business from the two countries can work together in the fields of agriculture and and services in particular, Stephen Cartwright, the CEO of Australia's NSW Business Chamber, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"My focus was about the fact that ... [there] was an opportunity to discuss with the Russian chambers how we work together across the world to promote trade. The opportunities [of cooperation with Russia] are obviously about small to medium businesses. Finally being able to do what big business does which is to be able [to work] across the borders and build their businesses. Agriculture, intellectual properties like services. There is plenty of opportunities for cross border trade," Cartwright said on the sidelines of a meeting of the General Council of the World Chambers Federation.

He stressed that Russia could potentially be a big trade partner for Australia.

The WCF meeting is taking place at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The federation unites the world's trade and commerce chambers for discussing issues of mutual interest.

Trade between Russia and Australia amounted to $812 million last year, up almost 30 percent year-on-year and Russia imports more to Australia than it exports. Russia's imports from Australia are mainly chemicals, agricultural products, machine tools and metals, while exporting mainly chemicals, pulp and paper, minerals, machines and metals. Agricultural products made up just around 2.5 percent of Russia's exports to Australia in 2017.