Official website of the President of Russia

Документ   /

The two leaders discussed expanding trade and economic cooperation between their countries.

* * *

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues,

We are very happy to see you and have the opportunity to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit to talk about our bilateral relations.

Some time ago, we signed a partnership agreement and we are building our relations, our cooperation, within the framework of that document. I must say that we have positive momentum in our trade and economic ties, although the absolute values, unfortunately, are still nothing to brag about.

I very much hope that today’s meeting and subsequent contacts, particularly at the ministerial and expert level, will allow us to find additional directions for collaboration and take our cooperation to a higher level. I am certain that the fulfilment of the agreements we are reaching within the framework of such broad, general forums as APEC will promote this.

President of The Republic of Chile Sebastian Pinera (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President. First of all, I would like to thank you for the excellent organisation of the APEC summit and the fact that it is happening in such a wonderful place, within the walls of Far East [Federal] University.

I wanted to say three things. First, I wanted to invite you to participate in the EU-LAC Summit, which will be held in Santiago de Chile at the end of January, when it will be summertime in our nation, and take this opportunity to visit Chile and Russia’s Antarctic bases.

Vladimir Putin: That’s a great suggestion.

Sebastian Pinera: A second idea I think you will find interesting is the need to intensify our trade relations, given the momentum in their development. We need to think about the possibility of developing agreements on free trade not only with Russia but also with its partners, Belarus and Kazakhstan. And based on that agreement, to increase not just turnover, not just the exchange of goods and services, but also the volume of mutual investment between Russia and Chile.

And finally, the third thing I wanted to say is that this year, we participated in the G20 summit that was held in Los Cabos on Mexico’s invitation; next year, as you know, the summit will be held in Russia, so it would also be a great privilege and honour for us to participate in that summit.

Vladimir Putin: That is what we will do, Mr President.

We have very good interstate relations, and we must channel that positivity into our economic partnership. And thank you for your interesting suggestion on visiting Chile and seeing our Antarctic stations.

<…>