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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Li Yuanchao, it is a great pleasure to meet with you here on the sidelines of the St Petersburg Forum.

Thank you for taking part in this event. Thank you for your very substantial speech at the Forum.

The Chinese government’s position on key development issues is of considerable importance for everyone taking part in the Forum and everyone who is following closely the global economy’s development. Your speech at the Forum was therefore an important part of the overall event and certainly influences its overall level. 

As you know, we just completed a lot of work in Shanghai with our Chinese friends and colleagues two or three days ago and achieved some very impressive results. These results were achieved during the preparations for the visit to Shanghai and during the work itself over these two days.

Of course, the Russian and Chinese governments played key roles here because it would have been impossible to reach agreements without first resolving some key issues that come under the governments’ responsibility.

I am very grateful of course to President of the People’s Republic of China and my friend Mr Xi Jinping, who took personal interest in all of the issues discussed during our negotiations. I think that were it not for his personal intervention on some key issues in our talks we probably would not have arrived at the decisions we did. 

But I must give your Government colleagues their due and say that they drank quite a bit of our blood during the negotiations. The Chinese are very serious negotiators. But they are also reliable partners who seek to reach agreement, listen to their counteragents, listen to their friends, work towards compromise and find it, and this is extremely important.

I am sure that we will continue our work on implementing the agreements reached during the recent visit, and on other new areas that I am sure will develop from our large-scale cooperation.

Vice President of the People’S Republic of China Li Yuanchao (retranslated): Mr President, thank you very much for the warm reception my colleagues and I have received. I thank you in particular for your speech and for your words about developing Russian-Chinese cooperation.

Mr President, above all I want to pass on warm greetings from President Xi Jinping. I know that you only just parted a few days ago, but nonetheless, I pass on his warmest greetings. 

I agree with you completely. Your recent state visit to China produced results of milestone importance. This is the result not just of China and Russia’s need for cooperation, but also of the wise and correct decision that you and President Xi Jinping made.

During this visit, you and President Xi Jinping reached a new level of strategic understanding and signed an important joint document. This visit took our bilateral relations and our comprehensive strategic cooperation relationship and partnership to a completely new level.

Mr President, I fully agree with you that the main task for both countries now is to unswervingly implement the agreements that you and President Xi Jinping reached. We will work together with our Russian partners and colleagues to implement the Joint Declaration and the joint agreements signed by the two countries. Of course we will work with Russia on developing practical cooperation and stepping up our coordinated work on the international stage. We are firmly committed to preserving and building on the positive trend in our bilateral relations’ development.

The St Petersburg Economic Forum is 18 years old now, and over these years it has gained new influence and authority.

Mr President, I liked very much your brilliant and strategically important speech. I noted that the moderator deliberately asked you tough questions, complicated questions, but you nonetheless managed to show wisdom and wit and answered all the questions marvellously. All of this made a very positive impression on me.

The fact that my colleagues and I are here today was the personal decision and instruction of President Xi Jinping. We came here with the purpose of giving our Russian colleagues support in holding the Forum.

As I sat in the hall before, listening attentively to your speech, I looked around and saw that there were many people present. I am sure the Forum will definitely be a success.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much for taking part and for your representative delegation’s participation. Please pass on my best wishes to President of China Xi Jinping.

We will set our sights on the new stage in our work and on our next meeting in person. We have planned a big cooperation programme, including at the top level, and we will carry out these plans.

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