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President of Russia VLADIMIR PUTIN: Madam President, ladies and gentlemen,

I must say that talks with the President of Brazil were substantive and constructive, just as we had hoped and planned. I would like to thank the President for this invitation.

We had a detailed discussion of the main areas in Russian-Brazilian cooperation and current international and regional issues.

Following our meeting, we signed a solid package of interdepartmental and commercial agreements intended to stimulate cooperation in a wide range of sectors.

Economic development issues have traditionally been at the centre of attention in our talks. Brazil is Russia’s major trade and economic partner in Latin America. In the last 10 years, our turnover has consistently increased, and, as the President just said, has recently grown more than two-fold.

At the same time – we discussed this today as well – in the last two years, mutual trade has dropped somewhat. Last year, our trade decreased by 3.2%. So it was time for us to get together, talk about all the problems that we are facing and plan steps for overcoming these problems. Ms Rousseff and I discussed possible practical steps and measures aimed at overcoming this situation.

We feel that another highly important objective on the bilateral economic track is active investment cooperation; indeed, we are planning for cooperation between our investment funds.

It is important to increase industrial cooperation and launch new projects, including in leading knowledge-intensive fields. Our joint action plan for developing trade and economic cooperation contains many specific initiatives for increasing mutual capital investments.

I will note that major Russian companies are already beginning to adapt to the Brazilian market. As you saw, Rosneft signed corresponding documents today and has invested in extracting hydrocarbons in the Solimoes river basin. Silovye Machiny [OJSC Power Machines] is another Russian company working in machine engineering and is opening a plant in Brazil to produce hydroelectric power station equipment. Another company has become a co-owner in a cargo marine terminal in Paraná.

”Economic development issues have traditionally been at the centre of attention in our talks. Brazil is Russia’s major trade and economic partner in Latin America. In the last 10 years, our turnover has consistently increased.“

We are developing industrial cooperation in aviation and automobile engineering. Russia fully provides for the Embraer aviation concern’s titanium needs. Flagships for Russian and Brazilian automotive manufacturing – Russia’s Kamaz and Brazil’s Marcopolo – have established a bus manufacturing plant in Russia.

More and more large projects are being implemented in the high-tech sector, as I already mentioned. Russia’s Biocad pharmaceutical company will be constructing a unique biotech research facility in Brazil. Another company – Kaspersky Lab – is making headway in the Brazilian software market, as is Megapay, a remote banking service, and Qiwi, an instant banking service, and others.

We intend to continue stimulating direct business contacts between our nations, including between small and midsize businesses. In this regard, we have high hopes for the memorandum signed by Delovaya Rossiya – our association of entrepreneurs – on cooperating with Brazilian partners.

Cooperation in the humanitarian sector has particular significance for our nations. Last year, Brazil successfully organised Days of Russian Culture. In May and June of this year, residents of Moscow and St Petersburg were very interested in the extensive programmes offered by the Days of Brazilian Culture.

Our plans include broadening contacts in science and education. Russian universities will participate in implementing Brazil’s national Science Without Borders programme and will welcome up to a thousand Brazilian students every year.

Sports represent a special area of cooperation. Brazil held the Football World Cup at a very high level. This involved a great deal of organisational and financial effort.

We agreed to continue a mutual exchange of experience in organising large-scale athletic events. Russia will be next after Brazil to host the Football World Cup in 2018, while Brazil will host the Summer Olympic Games in 2016, as you know. This year, we held the Winter Olympics; and in 2019, the World Universiade – the global student athletic event – will be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia and in Brasilia, Brazil.

During our talks, we touched on issues pertaining to the international agenda. Russia and Brazil are united by their common approaches to resolving key global problems – with the central coordinating role of the United Nations and the rule of the regulations and principles of international law to resolve regional conflicts.

Naturally, we had a separate discussion on cooperating within the  Background information BRICS BRICS format and discussed prospects for deepening ties between Latin American region overall and Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union that we are creating jointly with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

We are interested in cooperating with the common South American market. I hope that a corresponding document will be signed at the beginning of 2015, after our agreement with Kazakhstan and Belarus on the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union legally comes into force. Russia is interested in cooperating with Brazil to establish contacts with the Union of South American Nations.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all our friends in Brazil – first and foremost, Madam President – for the friendly and business-oriented atmosphere that was created during our joint work today.

Thank you for your attention.