Official website of the President of Russia

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Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates: Mr President, it is very important for us to receive you here today with the same warmth and hospitality with which you received us in Moscow.

You know how important your visit to Portugal is for us and for developing our bilateral relations and everything else.

I would like to note that our economic and cultural relations are expanding all the time and have developed particularly noticeably over these last years.

I am sure that our talks today will make a big contribution to developing our relations in culture, politics and the economy and will help to make the ties between our countries even stronger.

I also hope that our talks today will help us in our preparations for tomorrow’s summit between the European Union and Russia. This year marks 10 years of cooperation between the European Union and Russia and I am sure that this summit will be important for Portugal and for Russia in developing our relations.

Once again, I would like to wish you welcome. It is a personal honour for me to receive you here at the Prime Minister’s residence, and it is an honour for the entire Portuguese people to receive you in our country.

President Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, first of all, I would like to thank you most sincerely for the warmth that has surrounded us from the moment we arrived on Portuguese soil.

I recall your visit to Moscow. We had the occasion then to discuss the whole spectrum of our relations and I hope that we will continue these discussions today.

Life does not stand still and new opportunities are opening all the time. We must do everything we can to make use of these opportunities in the interests of developing our trade and economic ties, above all. I want to assure you, Mr Prime Minister, that we are committed to frank and open dialogue and we hope to be able to give a new boost to our cooperation.

Tomorrow, with your help and support, we will continue our dialogue with our European colleagues.

Thank you very much.