President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to welcome you all to St Petersburg for this informal meeting and informal summit of the CIS heads of state.
I will not make any lengthy speeches right now and will give the floor straight away to Kurmanbek Salievich Bakiyev [President of Kyrgyzstan] who, in accordance with our rules, will begin our work.
Kurmanbek Salievich, you have the floor.
President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev: Colleagues,
First of all, on my own behalf and on behalf of all the heads of state present here today, I would like to congratulate President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev and President of the Republic of Armenian Serzh Azatovich Sargsyan on officially taking office as heads of state, and I would like to wish them success in their high office.
Furthermore, on behalf of all my colleagues, I would like to thank Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for the initiative of holding this meeting, for its excellent organisation and for the invitation to the St Petersburg Economic Forum. During today’s meeting we will exchange views on current issues regarding the Commonwealth of Independent States’ development and other subjects.
I propose the following working procedure: first we give the floor to President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, then we exchange views, and then we hear brief reports from the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee and the CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Nikolayevich Lebedev on work on an economic development strategy for the CIS and on strengthening transport cooperation and ensuring food security.
We also need to make a final decision on the date of the CIS summit in Bishkek, which, as you know, we planned to hold on September 26.