Official website of the President of Russia

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President Vladimir Putin:

Good afternoon dear Mr Minister, dear colleagues!

I am very glad to welcome you to Moscow. Not only because you are one of the architects of an economic model that has helped your country develop successfully, but also because you personally supported the basic directions of the discussion that will take place this year in St Petersburg.

I would like to assure you and ask you to tell Mr Prime Minister that we are going to keep the continuity of the themes that our colleagues consider priority ones during the summit in St Petersburg .

This concerns improving the level of education in developing countries, and especially providing education free of charge and education in the poorest countries of the world. This concerns debt relief for the poorest countries of the world, and we can talk about the details and about our respective proposals. I know that you are familiar with and support our ideas.

Finally there is the issue of ensuring stability on the world energy markets.

I hope that all these themes were addressed during your discussion today with our Finance Minister [Aleksei Kudrin] and with other colleagues. But we shall still have the opportunity to discuss these problems.

And of course I would like to point out that our bilateral relations are developing intensively. The volume of trade is growing by something like 50 percent.

Welcome! I am very happy to see you!

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown (back translation):

Mr President, first of all I want to say that it is a very great privilege, a great honour to have the opportunity to meet with you. I thank you for the hospitality that you have shown here in the Kremlin.

I would like to thank you for the large amount of work that you have already done in preparing for the Russian presidency of the G8 in 2006.

The meeting that took place this morning in Moscow between finance ministers was, in my opinion, very successful. I know that you have very big plans for your G8 presidency, plans that are supported both by us and by all the G8 member states.

You talked about our economic policy in a very kindly way and I want to congratulate you on successfully carrying out Russia's economic policy. The fact that you have achieved six percent growth, even six and a half, should act as an example to us all.

I am looking forward to the further development of trade relations and relations in other areas between Great Britain and Russia.

Naturally we are interested in the work that you are going to lead within the G8 concerning energy security. I want to congratulate you for having chosen that topic as a topic for discussion.

Today at a meeting headed by Mr Kudrin I consider that we were already able to make significant progress towards defining the themes that will be the focus of our attention during the St Petersburg summit.