President Vladimir Putin: Let’s begin with the year’s results.
Vladimir Dmitriyev: Vnesheconombank is one of Russia’s oldest financial institutions. This year we celebrated our 80th anniversary.
The bank showed stable, positive indicators in practically all areas of its activities at the end of last year. This includes the bank’s purely financial activities – we had a profit of more than four billion roubles, which represents an increase of 20 percent compared to the previous year.
The bank is one of the constant leaders among Russian banks for its quantitative and qualitative indicators. We hold a confident place among the top ten and are in the top five for a number of quantitative and qualitative indicators.
We have been simultaneously involved in managing the foreign debt and managing state financial assets, working closely with the Finance Ministry, and, as you know, we have achieved significant results in reducing the foreign debt burden on the domestic currency debt, the gross domestic product. This indicator is now down to 18 percent, while just a few years ago it stood at 40 percent.