Socio-cultural, economic ties to be focus of visit, says Russian deputy PM Alexei Overchuk

• Russian Deputy PM expects collaboration to continue with Pakistan.
• He hopes India, Pakistan to find diplomatic solution to various issues.
• Overchuk says Russia is ready to share knowledge in various sectors.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk is set to land in Pakistan on a two-day visit today during which he will be leading a high-level delegation and hold meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, PM Shehbaz Sharif and his counterpart Ishaq Dar.

The Russian dignitary's visit was announced a day earlier by the Foreign Office which underscored cordial relations based on goodwill, amity and trust between the two countries.

Ahead of his visit, Deputy PM Overchuk spoke exclusively with Geo News to expand on the details of his trip to Islamabad.

How would you like to reflect on the current trajectory of Pak-Russia relations?

Pakistan is a long-time partner of Russia. In the past, relations between our countries had their ups and downs, but in recent years they have been on a steady rise.

Of course, Pakistan is also an important country in the South Asia region, which makes it part of the Global South. This is a region of the world with an increasing population, rapidly growing markets and countries with people looking forward to improving their lives in a peaceful environment. The economic centre of the world is shifting towards the Global South.

Recognising and appreciating these changes, Russia is working on enhancing its trade and economic relations with the countries of this region. We are building these ties based on mutual respect and friendship.

Moscow and Islamabad are maintaining a close dialogue. We have similar views on many items of the international agenda. This opens opportunities for a wide scope of collaboration. There is good potential for business cooperation as well as moving forward with cultural and humanitarian agendas.

Our countries also work closely with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Our priorities here are also largely aligned.

Therefore, the purpose of my visit is to discuss our current state of affairs and to consider ways of facilitating trade as well as taking advantage of opportunities for improving ties between our countries in bilateral and multilateral formats.

It appears that Pakistan-Russia relations have not picked up the required pace, why?

There is a good environment for advancing expanded cooperation between our countries. This process was significantly advanced by the meeting of our leaders on the sidelines of the [Shanghai Cooperation Organisation] SCO Council of Heads of State in Astana (Kazakhstan) in July of this year. Bilateral business and humanitarian cooperation are intensifying.

Our trade is facilitated by the increased share of transactions settled in national currencies and currencies of friendly nations which in the first six months of 2024 exceeded 80%. In 2022, it only accounted for less than 20% of foreign trade between our countries. This is a good indication of intentions to take our relationship further.

Are you satisfied with the current volume of trade between the two countries? 

In 2023, our trade volume reached $1.1 billion. For countries like Russia and Pakistan, such volume of mutual trade is, to say the least fairly modest. Our countries need to work more on this together and this is one of the main purposes of this visit.

In Russia, we are focused on improving transportation and logistics connectivity between Northern and Southern Eurasia, working on issues of food and energy security, improving education, creating and developing science and technologies, forming new secure supply chains between Eurasian countries and addressing the issues of the climate agenda..

Russia and Pakistan have great potential to proceed with developing many of these initiatives together to the mutual benefit of our people.

Which areas of economic, social and cultural cooperation need to be enhanced?

To create a better business environment and facilitate their economic development countries of Eurasia need to improve their connectivity. We need to have more and better trade routes connecting our countries. This will create the necessary infrastructural foundation for increasing trade and other relations and contacts.

The conditions are becoming right for building direct transport and logistics connectivity between the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, which are located in the north of Eurasia, and the countries of South Asia.

One of the priorities we are working on is the International North-South Transport Corridor running all the way from the Northern Ocean and the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. It is envisioned as a seamless international trade route connecting the CIS countries with the Persian Gulf, and South and Southeast Asia. We would like to see Pakistan as an important participant in this ambitious initiative. 

The implementation of this project will contribute to an increase in the volume of bilateral trade thus creating new jobs and improving the incomes of our people.

Another important area where our governments could do better is facilitating direct contacts between people and communities. Russia’s regions are interested in developing direct ties with people, communities, cities and regions in Pakistan.

Developing our social and cultural ties also contributes to this objective. We see Pakistan's interest in Russian education and are gradually increasing the number of state-funded internships for Pakistani students in Russian universities.

Russian language courses are now offered in several Pakistani cities. Language teachers from Russia are starting to educate students in Pakistan. This will help Pakistani students receive education in Russia which will provide our nations with a better environment for strengthening economic, humanitarian and cultural ties.

Former Soviet Union helped Pakistan develop its oil and gas industries, construction of power stations, and provision of agricultural machinery, what’s more on the cards?

Russia has advanced knowledge and technologies in traditional and clean energy, transportation, agriculture, medicine and many other sectors of the economy. Our growing economy is demonstrating resilience supported by one of the most efficient public administration systems in the world.

We would be prepared to share our knowledge. One of the purposes of this visit is to improve our understanding of where our knowledge and experience can be useful for Pakistan, establish contacts and then facilitate dialogue between our countries and people.

How do you view the perception that India matters in Pak-Russia relations?

India is a long-standing partner and friend of Russia. At the same time, relations between Russia and Pakistan have inherent value. It is unfortunate that Pakistani-Indian relations have deep contradictions. It is hoped that both of your countries will find a diplomatic solution to these issues.

To what extent now China matters in our bilateral relations?

We know that Pakistan is actively facilitating political, trade, economic, scientific, technical and armaments cooperation with China.

Moscow and Beijing are developing relations based on comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation. The Russian president has said that our relations are experiencing "the best period in their history and are guided by the principles of equality, mutual benefit and respect".

We positively view the advancement of mutually beneficial cooperation and friendship between our countries, based on mutual balance of interests.

Do you think that Pakistan's membership of SCO is of significance to Russia?

Russia and Pakistan have always advocated a constructive approach to developing trade and economic agenda within the SCO. Together we have successfully worked on balanced solutions to key issues of the Organisation's agenda.

We highly appreciate the preliminary results of Pakistan's presidency in the Council of Heads of Government of the SCO. Pakistan has demonstrated consistency and continuity of the Organisation's work. We share common approaches to key issues of the agenda.

We welcome Pakistan's initiatives aimed at ensuring sustainable trade growth in the SCO member countries. For instance, one of the results of the presidency is the plan to create a dialogue platform aimed at developing practical interaction between organisations and trade facilitation institutions. This will be an important step towards achieving the goals which I described earlier.

We expect that constructive collaboration with Pakistan will continue under Russia's presidency in the Council of Heads of Government of the SCO Member States in 2024-2025. We hope our Pakistani colleagues will support us in this work. It would be important to ensure the continuity between our presidencies.

How do you see cooperation between Pakistan and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)?

The Eurasian Economic Union consists of five countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Over the last 10 years, it has progressed to become one of the world's most integrated economies with free transborder movement of goods, services, capital and labour as well as a common market of 190 million people.

Unconstrained access to this large shared market allows our member-states to take opportunities that result in significant development of trade, visible economic growth and improvement of the living standard of our people.

Out five countries are working together to enlarge our export markets and promote healthy competition within our common customs border. To achieve this the EAEU is creating a network of free trade agreements. 

It is believed that a free trade agreement between the EAEU and Pakistan might create a better foundation for advancing our trade and economic relations further. We would like to explore this issue together and arrive at a solution that will be mutually beneficial for Pakistan and the five nations of the EAEU.

There are many different paths that our countries can choose to take together and support each other in achieving our national goals. It is really now the time to endeavour on this journey into the future.