Official website of the President of Russia

Transcripts   /

Dmitry Medvedev: Ms Federal Chancellor,

I’m glad to see you again. We have already developed full-scale regular contacts, and this is good. We are not slowing down and meet almost every month. Today, we will talk not only about resolving global issues (which are on our Hokkaido agenda) but also about bilateral relations with a view to expanding our contacts.

Our economic contacts are extremely productive. Our trade is huge. This is why we should meet from time to time and synchronise our watches. The cultural aspect is also very important. We have already spoken about a number of issues, and I hope we will continue our discussion.

Angela Merkel (as retranslated from Russian): Many thanks. I am grateful to you. I am also very pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you. Your recent visit to Germany was very successful, especially regarding continued development of our economic contacts. I think we can continue following this road.

I am convinced that we will have an opportunity to discuss bilateral issues here as well, but, of course, we will first concentrate on the G8 agenda. We occupy different positions here. Russia has oil and gas, whereas Germany needs to buy them. We will have to discuss very important aspects of the demand, on the one hand, and the supply, on the other. This subject is becoming increasingly important. I think it would be useful to discuss the development of these markets in the future.