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On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, Deputy Head of the Presidential Executive Office – Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, Minister of Transport Roman Starovoit, and Minister of Energy Sergei Tsivilev.

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Beginning of Russian-Lao talks

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends, Once again, I warmly welcome you all and would like to thank you, above all, for your participation in the BRICS Summit.

We assume that our group is a prototype of multipolarity, a structure that consolidates the Global South and East. I appreciate your comprehensive remarks. I have warm memories of our meeting in May, when you visited Moscow to participate in the celebrations marking the 79^th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. We will be glad to see you in Moscow at the celebrations of the 80^th anniversary of Victory next year.

Our relations are of a mutually beneficial nature and have already reached the level of strategic partnership. This March we celebrated the 30^th anniversary of the Treaty on Amity, and next year we will celebrate the 65^th anniversary of our diplomatic relations.

The absolute volumes of trade are still modest, but the trend is nevertheless very good, and it is increasing many times over.

We have close positions on most international issues. It is very important that the Lao chairmanship of the ASEAN promotes its cooperation with Russia, and we are very grateful to you for that.

We are very pleased with your visit, Mr President, and I thank you once again.

President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith (retranslated): Thank you, Mr President, for finding the time to meet with our delegation today.

It has been five months since we met and I won't take much of your time because you have a very busy schedule. So, I would like to reiterate some points of cooperation between our countries

I want to congratulate you on successfully holding the 16^th BRICS Summit, and I think that Russia’s role will grow in the international arena after this event. Following our May’s meeting we discussed banking and financial cooperation, and our central banks are already cooperating.

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