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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues,

I am very glad to see you again.

It is unfortunate that you could not visit us for the World Cup, but we did our best to ensure a comfortable stay for your team and for the Argentinian fans as well: a lot of fans came from Argentina. I think you should not be very upset, because you lost to France, which became the world champion.

I am very glad that you have the opportunity to come here and talk with your colleagues on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit. We also wish Argentina good luck in hosting the G20 summit next autumn.

Our bilateral relations are developing successfully; trade is growing, and our economic agents are exploring various options for expanding our cooperation.

I am very glad to have the opportunity to discuss all these matters with you.

President of Argentina Mauricio Macri (retranslated): Thank you for seeing me again.

I would like to congratulate you on the excellent organisation of the World Cup and on the excellent performance of your national team. The Russian team has shown that it can really fight, even though the predictions had been completely different.

Unfortunately, I could not visit because of the situation in Argentina, although I would have liked to attend at least one match. It was really a success, and a celebration for the whole world.

I would like to say once again that Russia is a key player in the international arena and a most important partner for Argentina. As I said, there has been progress on what we agreed in January. The first of the Russian investments are starting to make their way to Argentina. Transmashholding has started working on one of the railway enterprises located in the small town of Mechita, which is drawing in almost the entire population there.

A Russian company has also won the first tender for the maintenance and repair of rolling stock. This means that your investments in Argentina will increase and your companies will become more actively involved in our railway sector, where we have ambitious plans.

We will soon announce more tenders for very interesting public-private projects.

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