General Electric Co, the largest U.S. conglomerate, will prioritise Asia and resource rich countries like Russia, GE's Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt said on Friday.

We feel confident to invest in Asia and resource rich countries like Russia, Immelt told an economic forum in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, venue for 2014 Olympic Games.

He and several other top U.S. businessman met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during the event. GE's CEO told the former Russian President that his company was interested in the Russian market.

We believe Russia can be a great leader in energy and technology. We have been working with Gazprom and other prominent players both for production and sales in Russia and also for exports, Immelt said during the meeting.

In March, GE and Canadian auto parts maker Magna International announced plans to build new factories in Russia, while GE also said at the time it was freezing plans for a gas turbine venture with a local partner, NPO Saturn.

But Immelt said on Friday his company was still interested in partnership with the state-controlled turbine maker Saturn.

We still are in discussions with significant companies like Saturn which has great capability in energy and aviation.

Our vision is to continue discussions either with them or with others who we think can be great long-term partners and with whom we can produce product lines here and continue to grow over time. Immelt also said GE was interested in cooperation with the world's largest infrastructure firm, Russian Railways.

We will continue discussing with Russian Railways investing and building advanced diesel locomotive technology, he said.

(Reporting by Toni Vorobyova, Gleb Bryanski and Dmitry Sergeyev; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Hans Peters)

Russia Energy General electric Vladimir putin