The President reiterated that Russia has set its modernisation agenda, and thanked everyone who has shown support for Russia’s economic reform plans.
President of France Nicolas Sarkozy took part in the forum’s closing discussion, Rethinking Global Economic Trends.
* * *
President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Friends, President Nicolas Sarkozy,
I will not repeat what I said yesterday. That was a speech carefully crafted ahead of time. I also agree with much of what the French President just said.
I have a simpler task now, that of summing up the results of these last two days and perhaps giving a few statistics.
It is perhaps not really proper for me, as leader of the host country, to appraise the forum’s work, but I think it has certainly been interesting at the least.
First of all, I want to thank President Nicolas Sarkozy for personally taking part, for coming here and joining in the discussions. Today, the French President, as leader of one of Europe’s major countries, shared with us his view of the global financial crisis and its effects, of what we have accomplished and not yet accomplished, and what we probably will never manage to accomplish, though would like to very much. Thank you for this discussion today, Nicolas.
I will say a few words on how we see the situation. This is something we have all been discussing here. I can say that I am probably also reasonably optimistic.
Yesterday, during the first discussion, we were asking ourselves whether we are at the start of the crisis, in the middle of the crisis, or at the end of the crisis. One of your ministers, our colleague, said that we are at the start of the end of the middle of the crisis. This was a good turn of phrase that I suspect hides our desire to avoid qualifying what exactly is taking place right now. But be that as it may, we are following developments very closely indeed.
We have taken measures that have proven moderately effective, while in some cases have not been crowned with success. Now we are all holding our breath, following developments in Europe. We are following the discussion going on, a discussion that the French President described very carefully as a debate on which is more important today – stability or solidarity? I had the chance just recently to spend a long time (around nine hours, I think) discussing this very issue with the Federal Chancellor of Germany. Today I will also discuss this question with my friend Nicolas. I think that there is no conclusive answer to this question of what is more important, stability or solidarity, to spend or not to spend.
I did some hunting around in the internet today and came upon a curious phrase from a very well known figure – the Chinese philosopher Laozi. By some chance I always seem to end up quoting him when I’m in St Petersburg. Anyway, the phrase hits the nail absolutely on the head. This is what he had to say more than 2000 years ago on this subject we’ve been discussing: “Is the greater woe loss or gain? He who loves spends; he who hoards loses. No disgrace awaits he who knows measure, and no misfortune will come upon he who knows when to stop. Who remembers this will attain much indeed”. If we follow these principles from Chinese philosophy we will maintain balance and find a successful way out of this immense trial that has fallen upon us all.
For the first time perhaps in the post-crisis period, or since we began coming out of the crisis, we have been discussing our plans for the future. Russia has presented its new agenda – the agenda for our country’s modernisation. Of course it makes me very happy to hear most foreign businesspeople say, “We support you in this. We want Russia to modernise, to become a high-tech country, where all the fundamental institutions work, and where property rights are guaranteed. We are ready to help you carry out this technological modernisation”. .
I want to say though, that the G20 does indeed play its part. I agree really with what Nicolas said about this being probably the best thing we have achieved in management of global affairs over recent years. The best thing we have achieved this century thus far. I was very sceptical in my expectations when we met in Washington together (when the previous US administration was still in office, though a new president had already been elected by that moment). When I looked around at everyone seated at that long table I had the impression we would never manage to agree on anything and would just drown in an endless round of discussions and mutual resentments. I figured we would have various differences in approaches, with some (we know who) defending the Bretton Woods institutions, and some saying that we need to discard the entire old system immediately, and so there was the risk that we would just grind to a halt and go nowhere at all.
But oddly enough, the discussions took a normal turn and our contacts proved quite productive. We have had several meetings now and have even managed to make some reforms. I think that were it not for a number of decisions that came out of the G20 we could still be in a somewhat different stage of the crisis now.
We have quite a few events ahead. Of course we worry about the possibility of a second wave of the crisis, and this was something talked about here today. We are all following very closely indeed the discussions within the European Union, as I said. And we are taking the pulse of our own economies every day, following the trends, monitoring what our currencies are doing. We are most worried by the euro’s health and wish it a speedy recovery, because the euro is not just the EU’s currency but is our currency too. We use this currency too, as it is a reserve currency.
We are making our plans for the future. We have been discussing the idea of creating a range of new reserve currencies. We hope that this idea will be met with understanding in other countries, because having just two big currencies such as the dollar and the euro does not insure the world against problems. We are looking for ways to develop this idea now, and I am sure it is a goal we can achieve.
This meeting now brings our forum to a close. It is perhaps not really proper for me, as leader of the host country, to appraise the forum’s work, but I think it has certainly been interesting at the least.
First of all, it attracted a broad range of people, and all big names. I see that present here today are Russian regional governors, young people from business and civil service, our foreign guests. Yesterday we had many prominent business leaders present, and today we have a large number of Russian and French business leaders, and everyone has been taking part in the discussions. But this is not the only important thing.
For the first time perhaps in the post-crisis period, or since we began coming out of the crisis, we have been discussing our plans for the future. Russia has presented its new agenda – the agenda for our country’s modernisation. Of course it makes me very happy to hear most foreign businesspeople say, “We support you in this. We want Russia to modernise, to become a high-tech country, where all the fundamental institutions work, and where property rights are guaranteed. We are ready to help you carry out this technological modernisation”. To tell the truth, this really means a lot for us.
The forum has brought together 4,000 participants representing around 100 countries and 700 companies. This is a good result. Quantity is not the main thing of course, but it is nonetheless important. We have already signed contracts for around 5 billion euros (approximately 150 billion rubles).
I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has responded this way to our new agenda, to our plans for reforming Russia’s economy, and thus reforming Russia’s society. After all, it is not possible for the economy to change while the political system remains frozen in place. Of course we keep our values and traditions, stay true to Russia’s Constitution, but we realise that changes in the economy will inevitably entail changes to our laws, and not just to our civil and commercial law, where we have practically the same system as in France, but also to public law, including criminal law and criminal procedure. This was among the issues I addressed yesterday.
I think we can be happy with the numbers too. The forum has brought together 4,000 participants representing around 100 countries and 700 companies. This is a good result. Quantity is not the main thing of course, but it is nonetheless important.
We have already signed contracts for around 5 billion euros (approximately 150 billion rubles). And we still have a whole number of other agreements waiting to be signed. Russia and France will sign ten bilateral agreements. We hope to do this now when we begin our bilateral talks. At this level too then I think the forum has been a success. What can we expect next? New meetings I hope will await us.
We were even lucky with the weather this year. Of course we worked hard on this, well, the St Petersburg authorities did, anyway, and so I say a separate word of thanks to the Governor of St Petersburg [Valentina Matviyenko] and to everyone who helped to make the weather. I remember the long faces last year. It was very cold and the atmosphere was grim. When I began speaking I remember saying that “St Petersburg has turned on the weather to match our mood”. It is not hot now, and so we are not overheated here, but we have a comfortable warmth. I hope that we will manage to keep this atmosphere over the coming year and overcome the remaining difficulties before us.
We will keep cooperating with the European Union and with our close partners, of course. We greatly value the relations that we have with France, and I value the personal relations that I have with Nicolas Sarkozy.
I invite you all back next year to hospitable St Petersburg, to this city that is indeed perhaps the most European of Russian cities, while at the same time being a very Russian city too, always happy to receive guests, and with centuries-old traditions of hospitality.
Until our next meetings! Thank you for everything.