The participants in the meeting, held during a visit by business officials from Russia's Yaroslavl region, shared the view there was still a lot of untapped potential to boost bilateral trade and investment.

National Council President Mitja Bervar noted the negative impact of the Ukraine crisis on the trade between Slovenia and Russia, underscoring the importance of meetings like the one today.

The Russian ambassador agreed with him that the sanctions prompted by the crisis had had some negative consequences, but he said the drop in trade was in part also due to the fall in energy prices.

After topping EUR 1.4bn last year, the bilateral volume of goods trade has fallen. Provisional data shows it amounted to EUR 495m in the first half of the year, down from EUR 719m in the same period last year.

Zavgayev called for the countries to tap on the many opportunities still available. Aside from a boost in bilateral cooperation, he also proposed joint forays into third markets such as Kyrgyzstan an Uzbekistan.

Boris Tamarov, director of the Yaroslavl Agency for Investment and Cluster Development, presented the business environment in the region, which is situated about 250 kilometres south-east of Moscow.

The region has well developed infrastructure, many logistics hubs and clusters, one of the fastest growing being the pharmaceutical and innovative medicine cluster, Tamarov said.

His agency supports investment projects, offers financial incentives and is open for cooperation with various institutions, he said. The region is also focused on development of industry and agriculture.

Tanja Drobnič of the Slovenian SPIRIT agency for the promotion of entrepreneurship and investment meanwhile presented Slovenia's assets. She also said the country would like to diversify its exports, 75% of which are to the EU.

The Yaroslavl business delegation is visiting Slovenia this week after a group of officials representing 23 Slovenian businesses visited the region in September 2014.