Official website of the President of Russia

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President Vladimir Putin: Federal Chancellor, consultations participants,

Allow me to welcome you here, to Russia – to the hospitable Urals.

There are a number of reasons for this choice of location for our meeting.

Above all, the Ural region is renowned for its enormous economic and scientific potential. And there are many examples of the successful realisation of projects with the involvement of companies from both our countries. There are also opportunities for effective joint work and for testing new effective forms of cooperation. Furthermore, the Urals have the potential to become one of the most powerful regional centres in Russian-German business partnership.

Now we will move to the “culmination” of the consultations – summarising results and setting new goals – both urgent and long-term.

In the time that has passed since the Weimar stage of consultations, virtually all the areas of our cooperation have gotten a “second wind”. I am certain that today we can and must set ourselves more large-scale and truly strategic goals oriented towards the long-term perspective.

Yesterday and today, Mr. Schroeder and I continued our substantial dialogue on the entire spectrum of the bilateral and international agenda. We ascertained that even in areas where we have problems, there is a desire to mobilise the entire potential of our state apparatuses towards a constructive search for mutually acceptable solutions.

Not wanting to rush ahead, I propose summarising the main results of the consultations and inform on the agreements reached after the reports by the heads of ministries and departments which have worked intensively on these topics.

This is all for my opening address.