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The G20 Youth Summit is taking place June 18–21 on the site of the 17th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends,

I am very happy to see you all. Our meetings within the framework of the G20 Youth Forum are now becoming regular.

I have a good recollection of personally meeting with G8 youth when we were preparing the G8 in 2006 – incidentally, here in St Petersburg. At the time, the young people from the eight leading global economies engaged in discussion and drafted recommendations to the G8 leaders.

I think it’s very good that we have expanded to encompass the 20 largest and most promising global economies, and it’s even better that you, as young people, are participating in our work, since young people always look toward the future; you often plow straight ahead, but this is quite effective.

I know you discussed various problems during your break-out sessions. I’m sure you are familiar with the Russian presidency’s priorities (we are working in total continuity with what was carried out by our friends and partners in Mexico), the objectives we are setting for ourselves during the upcoming work here in St Petersburg in September of this year have been formulated and put on paper. I am confident that you are familiar with them. These include efficient regulation, attracting investments and transparency in all our relations.

I just met with business community members from all the G20 nations. In essence, my colleagues and I, people who have already gained wisdom, and a fair amount of experience and success as leaders of major companies from our 20 countries, discussed these very problems. We discussed them at great length, at least an hour and a half.

I won’t repeat everything that I just said at the meeting of G20 business community members.

I would like to suggest keeping our discussion as informal as possible. It would be a pleasure to hear you out, and then, we can discuss the problems you feel are most pressing, most relevant and important in an open, free-running discussion, so that I can convey your ideas to the G20 leaders and try to implement some of your suggestions in the final documents.

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