Putin seeks German help to modernize Russian economy

Oct 11, 2006, 15:40 GMT

Munich - Russian President Vladimir Putin sought the assistance of Germany on Wednesday in helping to modernize his country's expanding economy.

Closer cooperation in the fields of advanced technology and science were the best ways to achieve this goal, the president said on the final day of a two-day visit to Germany.

Putin was speaking in the southern state of Bavaria where he conferred with regional politicians and business leaders before delivering a lecture on current affairs.

Bavaria, which has about 1,000 firms doing business with Russia, could become a 'locomotive' in helping his country, the president said.

Bavarian state Premier Edmund Stoiber said Germany was willing to cooperate with Russia in the economic and scientific fields, except where strategic industries were involved.

German firms plan to invest more than 1.4 billion euros in Russia next year, said Klaus Mangold, chairman of the powerful Eastern Committee of the Federation of German Industries.

Russia, he said, 'not only has the world's biggest reserves of natural resources, it is also one of the world's fast-growing economies and is close to Germany geographically.'

'I am confident that German firms will increase their commitment in the years ahead. There are many projects planned in the energy and automobile sectors,' Mangold said.

Putin's visit to Germany was part of the St Petersburg dialogue he established with former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2001 to foster relations between the two states.

The Russian leader travelled to Munich from the eastern city of Dresden where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday and offered to double the amount of natural gas being pumped to Germany, in a move he said was aimed at boosting Berlin's energy clout in the European Union.

But his visit was overshadowed by the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a leading critic of the war in Chechnya who was shot dead in Moscow on Saturday in an apparent contract killing.

The Bavarian branch of the Green Party declined to attend an official luncheon with Putin on Wednesday and instead took part in a vigil for the slain reporter.

At his press conference on Tuesday the Russian leader called the killing 'abhorrent,' and said it had done far more damage to Russia than her reporting.

Putin has recently come under fire from human rights groups and media watchdogs over what they see as a growing crackdown on press freedom in Russia.

The international organization Reporters Without Borders accused the Kremlin of seeking to bring independent newspapers under state control after silencing private radio and television stations.

'There are very few free and independent media outlets in Russia. Objective journalists have to reckon with being deprived of their liberty, suffering damage to their health or, in extreme cases, death,' the international organization said in a statement released in Berlin a day before Politkovskaya was gunned down.

Before leaving Dresden for Munich on Wednesday, the Russian leader took an extended stroll around the city where he served from 1985 to 1990 as an agent of the former Soviet Union's KGB intelligence service.