MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could open a trade mission in Abkhazia in early 2010, a senior Russian Economic Development Ministry official said Monday.

Sergei Chernyshev, director of the ministry's department for economic cooperation with the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States, told journalists that the Russian and Abkhaz economics ministries agreed to set up trade missions last week at a forum in Sukhumi, the capital of the former Georgian republic.

"It'll take a certain amount of time to form a staff for it [the Russian trade mission]. I think at the beginning of next year. We won't delay," he said.

Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another former Georgian republic, after the end of a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008.