LONDON, June 19 (RIA Novosti) - Trade between Russia and Britain increased 45%, year-on-year in January-April 2008 to $6.7 billion, the Russian ambassador to London said on Thursday.

Speaking at an annual summit of the Russian-British Chamber of Commerce in London, Yuri Fedotov said bilateral trade had increased by some 20% in 2007 to $16.6 billion.

Fedotov said the U.K. remained a major foreign investor in the Russian economy, with investment of $26.3 billion in 2007.

"It is especially important that despite global financial uncertainty the inflow of British investment into the Russian economy continued to grow in the first quarter of this year and amounted to $3.3 billion," Fedotov said.

The Russian diplomat said that British investment benefited many sectors of the Russian economy, such as retail trade, industry, metallurgy, transport, communications and real estate, adding that Russia-U.K. economic and trade relations could boost broader bilateral cooperation.

"We can only mutually gain from an expansion of relations based on trust and mutual respect," Fedotov said.

Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained recently by the diplomatic fallout following the murder of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006 and Moscow's refusal to extradite the U.K's main suspect in the case, and more recently by the closure of British Council offices in Russia.