SARAJEVO, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - The Serbian interior minister will begin a two-day visit to Moscow on Thursday, the Balkan country's Beta news agency reported.

Ivica Dacic, who also holds the position of a first deputy prime minister, will take part in a session of Russian-Serb working dialogue aimed at developing economic and investment cooperation between the countries.

Ahead of the visit, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Konuzin said the current global credit crunch had affected bilateral trade between the two countries.

"Trade dropped by 40.4% in the first four months of 2009 to $823 million," Serb media quoted Konuzin as saying.

The ambassador also said the two countries' finance ministries had been negotiating a Russian stabilization loan for Serbia.

He stressed the importance of Russian-Serbian cooperation, primarily in energy.

Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, completed a deal in February to buy a 51% stake in Serbia's state-owned Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) for 400 million euros ($522 million).