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V.Putin: Sergey Sergeevich, you are leaving for the country, which we are connected to with a long history of friendship, many mutual interests and a tremendous scope of cooperation.

After signing an important treaty in 2001 and settling our border disputes, Russia and China have created a solid foundation of long term cooperation, in reality, a historical perspective.

First of all, it's necessary to pay attention to the development of economic ties. Our relations in this area are developing nicely, but the outlook for the future is even better, we still have a lot of unused reserves. In the energy sector it is power industry, the production of raw materials, joint cooperation concerning the markets of ”third world countries“ and the direct work of our energy experts in the People's Republic of China, as well as increasing delivery of processing industry production from the Russian Federation to the People's Republic of China and from China to Russia, and the development of major projects which could become the driving forces for enhancing of trade and economic ties.

It is necessary to pay a lot of attention to the activity of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation. We have an agreement with our Chinese colleagues on this particular point. The key issues that can be dealt with as of today, have been agreed to during the last visit of the President of the People's Republic of China, Mr Hu Jintao, to Russia.

We cooperate actively with our Chinese colleagues in international organizations and have rather extensive consultations on the whole line of key points concerning the international agenda, including the reformation of the UN.

We have achieved a good mutual understanding and a real partnership concerning strategic cooperation on the regional level within the framework of such an organization as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Our contacts in the military-technical areas are developing actively and fruitfully. With regards to this, we have to strengthen legal and contractual instruments of this cooperation. We have to work on the preparation and signing of an agreement on protection of intellectual property acquired in the process of joint work. As you know, a major step has been taken towards purely military cooperation. On the 18th of August this year joint military exercises, may be the biggest in the history of our relationship, will take place using the latest armament that the Russian army is equipped with, and our Chinese partners will employ military machinery and a large military contingent. All this together, I repeat, is the very good basis for the development of our relationship.

Let's not forget the cultural field as well. You have a very important task to do in 2006 and 2007, as one of them will be, ”A Year of China,“ in the Russian Federation, and the next one, ”A Year of Russia,“ in China.

All this, I repeat, is a very large scope of work. I hope that in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, and with all our colleagues in Beijing you will be able to succeed in the further development of our strategic partnership.

S.Razov: Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank you for the possibility to meet you. I see in it an expression of attention not only to myself, but to the problems of relations in the country, where I'm going to represent the interests of the Russian Federation.

I appreciate all the responsibility that I am entrusted with.