Official website of the President of Russia

Transcripts   /

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President,

I am glad we meet today within the format of the G20 summit in London.

We have met, first and foremost, in order to talk about prospects for getting the world economy out of its current crisis, to discuss the development of a global financial architecture, and to make a number of important decisions. But this does not impede us from talking about prospects for Russian-Chinese relations, which have gained additional momentum.

Last year, you and I met five times; this is our first meeting this year, but certainly, not the last. We do have topics for discussion at this relatively short but important meeting taking place during the summit in London.

I hope we will also be able to explore current international situation.

Hu Jintao (as translated into Russian): Mr President,

I am happy for this new meeting with you. As you very rightly pointed out, we met five times last year, and we reached some very important common ground in deepening the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, which played a weighty role in promoting our bilateral relations.

This is our first meeting this year. I am ready to speak with you in detail to exchange views on issues of bilateral relations and the most important topics of mutual interest.

This year, we will be marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Russia. 2009 will be the Year of Russian Language in China. The Year of Russian Language was launched just a few days ago in Beijing with numerous events and activities to follow within its frameworks.

Having signed a number of agreements on cooperation in oil sector, we created the basis for a promising long-term partnership between China and Russia in this area.

The strategic security consultations mechanism in now in place too.

To sum up, this year we had a good start for further comprehensive and accelerated development of our relations.