North Korea's Foreign Trade Minister Rim Kyong Man and Konstantin Pulikovsky, the head of the Federal Environmental, Engineering, and Nuclear Supervision Agency (Rostekhnadzor), who is also the Russian co-chairman of the bilateral commission, are expected to discuss 13 issues, including trade, interregional contacts, cooperation in power generation, metallurgy, mining and forestry industries, transport and agriculture, as well as North Korea's $8.8 billion debt to Russia.
Negotiations on the debt were suspended in 2002. Pyongyang has requested that Russia clear almost all its debt, while Moscow has put forward various scenarios for settling the problem, including trading the debt for investment or property.
North Korea insists there are legislative restrictions on the implementation of Russia's proposals.
The previous meeting of the bilateral commission was held in Pyongyang October 20, 2002.
The Russian part of the bilateral commission gathered Thursday in the run-up to the talks and said that trade between Russia and North Korea had declined by $31 million (13%), to $209 million, which it said was a serious imbalance.
Inter-regional cooperation accounts for 80% of bilateral trade. North Korea cooperates primarily with the Far Eastern regions of Russia.
