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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President, dear Hugo, I am very happy to have this new opportunity to meet, and I wish you a warm welcome to the Kremlin.

We discussed a broad range of issues yesterday evening, and discussed many different matters today too. In keeping with your trademark style we even discussed business matters as the delegations were being introduced, and I think this is the right way for us to work together with our friends.

Our ties have grown stronger of late. We have achieved good results despite the crisis. Our meeting today is not just a meeting between friends who have not seen each other and spoken to each other for a while, but is also the chance to take a whole series of steps forward in developing our cooperation. We have a strategic partnership. We are close friends. The very important documents that will be signed today will build on these good ties.

We exchanged views on the situation in the world, the situation in Latin America, our partnership’s development, and regional issues. We still have to examine the main priorities for our future cooperation and the plans that we have.

Overall, I want to say once again, Hugo, how happy I am with the businesslike way in which your visit is taking place, and happy that we will sign new agreements on the various projects that we discussed yesterday and today, and which I hope we will carry out with success.

Of course, we do not focus on the economy alone. Our humanitarian ties are also very important and we are always very happy to develop cultural ties. I think it is also very important to develop education projects, because they are investments in the future. People who studied in Russia and will study in Russia in the future are the people who will go on to develop the cooperation between our countries. I therefore invite you to boost cooperation in these areas too. I think we will have more to say on other matters later at the news conference.

Once again, I wish you a warm welcome to the Kremlin.

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez (re-translated): Thank you, Mr President, my dear friend Dmitry, advisers, ministers, and comrades,

I am deeply and sincerely happy to be here in Moscow on this important visit. We meet once a year on average.

Thank you for your words, and thank you for all of the progress we have made over these years in our relations. It is no exaggeration to say that our relations have reached a strategic level. We make full use of all possibilities for cooperation in various areas, in economic, cultural, and science and technology ties.

We highly appreciate Russia’s contribution to helping us obtain our independence. Yesterday we visited the site where a monument to Bolivar will stand. But we are still fighting for our independence today, fighting against new empires. I want to thank all of you, because the documents that we will sign today represent an important step forward. 

We examined a number of international issues, including the situation in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. We discussed oil and gas, industry, agriculture, and military technical cooperation. We are happy with this, Mr President.

I will try to be brief, given that we still have the news conference yet to come.

We need to begin new projects. You all know that Latin America is undergoing a renaissance, gaining a new life, just as Russia too underwent a revival not so long ago. We need to combine our efforts so as to help each other and everyone else to build a new multipolar world of peace and cooperation.

In the plane yesterday, I read through global development outlooks through to 2070. The Earth’s population is forecast to reach 10 billion by 2070. We therefore need to start laying the foundations today for tomorrow’s world. We have an enormous task ahead of us. We need to examine very carefully the roads that we will take to reach our goals. I remind you that Che Guevara said one must always keep one, two or three steps ahead of chaos, and there is plenty of chaos in the economy. We will try to keep one, two, or three steps ahead of this avalanche of chaos. And so I thank you once again for this discussion and this reception.

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