Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, friends,

I would like to welcome you once again, this time in an expanded format. Mr Prime Minister and I held an exhaustive one-on-one discussion on a broad range of issues while we travelled by sea to the new Zvezda Shipyard and back.

First of all, I would like to express gratitude to Mr Prime Minister for attending the Eastern Economic Forum as a guest of honour.

Our meeting was preceded by thorough preparations conducted by our ministries, agencies and businesses. They have coordinated a large package of bilateral documents, covering trade and investment, industry, military technical cooperation, education and culture.

As planned, today we will approve a comprehensive joint statement titled Through Trust and Partnership to New Heights in Cooperation, which will set the mood for deepening bilateral ties, including closer foreign policy coordination. We are working energetically in this sphere, supporting each other, and we hold identical or similar views on many key issues on the international agenda.

Mr Prime Minister, we look forward to seeing you – of course, we will also meet at the BRICS summit in Brazil, but we also expect to see you at the May 2020 celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, victory over Nazism.

I would like to thank you once again for attending the Vladivostok events. I believe that we will also give the floor to our colleagues from the different spheres of our cooperation, just as we agreed to do.

Please.

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (retranslated): Your Excellency, Mr President, my dear friend,

It is a great pleasure for me to be here today in the wonderful city of Vladivostok. This is my first visit to Russia’s Far East.

Your invitation to attend the Eastern Economic Forum is a great honour for me. This also presents a historic opportunity to impart a new impulse and new dimensions to cooperation between our countries, and it is with great pleasure that I will take part in this forum tomorrow.

Thank you for your initiatives. Last month, a special delegation from India visited Vladivostok, and I would like to specially thank you and your team for this extremely useful visit.

I would also like to thank you for organising a wonderful reception for our delegation, for me and my delegation. I am very impressed with the brand new infrastructure at Far Eastern Federal University.

Your Excellency, you have presented me with the top Russian award. I am grateful for this award to you and to the people of Russia. The Order [of St Andrew the Apostle the First-Called] that has been awarded to me highlights the special friendship between the people of our countries. This is a tremendous honour for India’s one billion-plus population.

Russia is a very close friend and trusted partner of India. You devote personal attention to expanding our special privileged strategic partnership. As two very close friends, we meet on a regular basis. I have also repeatedly spoken with you over the telephone, and I never feel any uncertainty during such conversations.

It goes without saying that our meetings are very important, including in the historical context. This is the 20^th summit between our countries in the past 12 years that you have been heading Russia in one position or another. Our relations have been strengthened, and they have facilitated progress, peace and stability in our states and the entire world.

Today, we have agreed to expand cooperation between our countries in several spheres, including defence, the nuclear power industry, business and space. We have agreed to elevate these relations to a new level, and I am very happy that we have an opportunity to conduct very useful talks with you and your delegation on all aspects of our relations. Thank you once again.

Today, we also had an opportunity to spend some time together, about two hours, and you informed me about some very important matters. I can say that I saw your vision and your commitment to the development of this region in every word you said. This impressed me very much.

I would like to once again thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister.

Indeed, it was a great honour for us to present you with the Order of St Andrew the First-Called, the top state award in Russia. I believe it would be proper to conduct the official ceremony of presenting this award in the Moscow Kremlin.

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