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Mr Putin and Mr Morsi also made press statements following the talks.

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Beginning of meeting with President of Egypt Mohammed Morsi

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends, good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to see you in Russia.

This is our second meeting in a relatively short period. We are in the process of fully restoring our relations, and I am very pleased to see this happening.

As our political contacts intensify, so our economic relations are developing too, despite the current global economic difficulties, and we now have bilateral trade worth a little over three billion dollars.

The number of Russian tourists visiting Egypt is also increasing. The number went up by 35 percent last year, which surprised me to be honest, but those are the facts.

Mr President, Russia and Egypt have a longstanding friendship. This year we are celebrating the 70^th anniversary of diplomatic ties between our countries.

We are very happy to see you in Russia, Mr President. Welcome!

President of Egypt Mohammed Morsi (re-translated): My dear friend and brother, President Vladimir Putin,

I am very happy to be here and to meet with you here in the Russian Federation. I am very happy too with what you said about the development in our bilateral relations and our efforts to strengthen them and take them to a new level.

Our last meeting in South Africa on March 27 gave a big impetus to developing and strengthening our bilateral ties and expanding and opening up our cooperation.

Mr President, the issues that we discussed at our last meeting are only a part of the many different areas that we can look at and talk over.

The Egyptian people, whether today, in the new phase that began after the revolution of January 25, or at any other moment over the 70-year history of our diplomatic relations, will never forget the positive legacy that the Soviet Union gave us, and the support we received from the Soviet Union in various areas such as agriculture and the military sector.

There were many obstacles in the way of our taking our relations to a new level, but we have all the opportunities and prospects we need now for achieving these goals.

In our discussions today, Mr President, I would like to go beyond simply increasing our trade or the number of tourists coming to our country.

The issue is more important and multifaceted. As far as our political relations go, we very much want and hope to establish a real alliance with the Russian Federation, and there are also many economic sectors that we would like to develop jointly.

They include transfer of Russian technology, knowledge, and experience in order to help us in our industrial development. I am opening many doors in this area, including a door to Russia, a country on which we place great hopes and count on to help us in carrying out our plans.

Many projects using Russian technology have been carried in Egypt in the past, including big projects such as the Aswan Dam, the steelworks, and the aluminium smelter.

I see many opportunities for developing and modernising these projects using Egyptian experience and Russian technology. I think that the time is ripe to get these projects underway without delay. I think that you would find very fruitful cooperation opportunities in these projects, and this is something we could continue and expand.

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