Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, please allow me to sincerely welcome you. I am very happy to see you in Russia.

I am very pleased that in spite of the domestic policy processes underway in the People’s Republic of China, we are continuing contacts at the highest level. We are gaining new friends and are maintaining contacts with our old, trusted ones. Yesterday, my colleagues from major corporations and from the Cabinet reported to me that work at the expert and governmental level is progressing quite actively.

I am very happy to see you. Welcome!

Premier of the State Council of the People'S Republic of China Wen Jiabao (retranslated): It is a pleasure to visit you, my old friend, Mr President!

I am especially pleased that I am making the last foreign visit in my political career to Russia, and that the friend I am meeting is you.

I am very happy to announce that I had a very good meeting with the Russian Prime Minister. We noted the good progress in our cooperation in the energy sector, investment in high technology and so on. We also have new plans for humanitarian cooperation.

My colleagues, newly elected Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan and Politburo member Ms Liu Yandong, accompany me on this visit to Russia. This is our first visit following our 18^th party congress. In terms of representation, this is a very high-level delegation. I think our meeting today, as well as the meeting we had with the Prime Minister, are both very important.

Vladimir Putin: My dear friend, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao! You should be proud of what we have done in recent years. Not only we increase trade turnover between our nations – although that, too, is very important – but also brought the relations between China and Russia to a new level. First and foremost, this pertains to our economic cooperation. You have already listed the main areas in which we are cooperating. And we have created the preconditions for further development.

You have named our Chinese friends who have taken new positions following the party congress. We know them all very well as our trusted friends and top-level experts, and this is very important. And we are certainly grateful to you for everything that you have personally done in recent years for the development of Russian-Chinese relations.

You said that this is your last official visit, but we hope it is not your last trip to our nation. We will always be happy to see you here.

Thank you very much.

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