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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, colleagues, friends,

I am very pleased to see you again. We all remember your warm welcome during my visit to Athens.

The situation has not changed significantly since that visit, but there are nevertheless some positive developments. They concern the volume of the trade turnover, which has increased by over four percent over last year and by 80 percent over the first two months of this year.

As a whole our trade turnover with the EU has gone up by 43 percent. Our current agenda includes some promising bilateral projects, which unfortunately, are currently on hold but which, in my opinion show positive signs for future development.

I am really glad to have this opportunity to meet with you here in Beijing during this large international conference and to be able to discuss all our bilateral issues along with some problems from our international agenda.

Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras (retranslated): Mr President, it is a great honour for me to see you in Beijing.

It has been a year since your visit to Greece. Considerable progress has been made in the relations between Russia and Greece. However, we have many unresolved issues that we need to discuss. And the most important ones concern the positive trends in the bilateral trade and the overall situation in the region.

As you have already mentioned, considerable growth in trade has occurred between our countries, and even more considerable growth has occurred in the flow of Russian tourists to Greece. The joint Russia-Greece commission, under which our respective ministries can address current issues, is playing a big role in this growth.

It is very important that our ministries act within the tradition of expanding Russia-Greece relations as this forms the basis of cooperation between our two nations.

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