MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged the leaders of five Central Asian states to boost their trade with Russia, as Moscow seeks to build back its influence in a region that is also being courted by China.
Russia’s total trade turnover last year with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan was over $45 billion – a “good result” but well short of the level of its bilateral trade with Belarus, which has a fraction of their combined population, Putin said.
He told a summit in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, that there was therefore good potential for growth.
The five Central Asian states were ruled from Moscow until 1991 as part of the Soviet Union, and Russia still regards the region as part of its sphere of influence.
But with the Kremlin distracted by its war in Ukraine and China making increasing inroads in trade and investment, Russia’s standing in the region has declined.
Millions of Central Asian migrants are employed in Russia, filling labour shortages there and sending home remittances that help support their economies.
But Russia has tightened controls on migrant labour following an Islamist militant attack that killed more than 140 people near Moscow last year, in which the suspects were mostly from Tajikistan.
A bland joint communique from the summit said the Central Asian states “noted the importance of further strengthening their strategic partnership with Russia”.
It said the leaders agreed to work on creating new transport and logistics corridors, cooperate in fighting terrorism, illegal migration and drugs, and improve trade payment and settlement systems.
(Reporting by Reuters; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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