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The Russian President noted the intensity of the dialogue between Moscow and Vienna in many areas and expressed hope that Austrian business representatives managed to establish new and restore former ties with Russian companies at the 2017 St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Federal Chancellor, friends, I would like to cordially welcome you to St Petersburg once again and thank you for accepting our offer to come to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

This year a great many of our partners came here. The venue is becoming interesting indeed. I hope our friends from Austria have also restored their old contacts and established new ones.

We have always had a very intensive dialogue with Austria virtually in all areas. It is enough to say that Russian investment in the Austrian economy has reached almost $24 billion, and Austrian investment in the Russian economy is around $7 billion.

Many Austrian companies are operating in Russia. There are whole industries in which we are intensively and effectively working together. I hope we will continue this work with you.

Welcome once again!

Federal Chancellor of Austria Christian Kern (retranslated):

Thank you very much for the invitation that we willingly accepted. We consider regular political and economic exchanges with the Russian Federation to be very important.

I would like to continue the discussion that we started at the plenary session today. I must say I did not know who would be the panel moderator. When I was told about her later on, I gained even more respect for you because I would not dare do something similar at home.

But it is good to have an opportunity to exchange arguments. This is very important. And I am very pleased to have taken part in such an event.

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