B - Comprehension Test 7

Part 1

_______________________between Russia and the United States last year _________________about 25 billion dollars. US and Russia trade officials have been __________________for joint actions to expand trade cooperation, which both sides believe has enough _______________________________________and diversification. Russian trade and economy officials have long complained that trade between the two countries is _________________where Russian exports of raw materials prevail, while US exports of high technology to Russia remains affected by heavy __________________________and control, like in the old Soviet times. In those years each item of US exports to Soviet Russia was heavily _________________and US-Soviet trade remained largely _____________________business. These days, however, the pattern of US-Russian trade has changed considerably, although Russian raw materials still dominate in the overall exports from Russia to the United States. But now US companies are looking to expand technology investments in the Russian market, targeting primarily software development and information technologies.

Part 2

Russia’s first vice-premier Sergei Ivanov last month called for taking what he called political and economic steps to improve Russian-US partnership in high-technology trade. Sergei Ivanov told a government _______________________________that this country needs _______________________________at the government level to make Russian-American cooperation in high technology equal and ________________________in character.__________________, the Russian government official implied, such cooperation is ____________equal _________________mutually beneficial. Sergei Ivanov ____________________________that the US high tech market is particularly important to Russia, not ______________from the point of_______________________, but more importantly from the point of helping Russia _____________an innovative economy, an issue that is being widely discussed in Russia and which spells _____________________________________

__________________________and technologies and their _____________________________

with the latest business trends

Part 3

The Russian government official noted that the ______________export of Russian high-technology _________________ to the United States alone amounts to a little more than 1.3 billion dollars. But business _______________with the US side in this field are___________________. In a number of specific areas, he said, they are seriously ___________________by various factors, occasionally of purely political nature. “Administrative trade barriers ________________in the United States that restrict Russian customers ___________________and some Russian enterprises are________________ by __________________and ____________________by the US government that are hard to explain from the point of international law,” Sergei Ivanov said.

These days Russian engineers ______________________________________their skills in the development of Boeing’s Dreamliner aircraft and Russia is exporting rocket engines for use in the United States. But Russia has yet to ______________________in high-technology exports overseas. The United States, ____________, has yet ______whatever ______________________it has on exports of its own high-tech products to Russia.