President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues,
I would like to begin by thanking the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Mr Jair Bolsonaro for accepting my invitation to come to Russia on an official visit. This is the President’s first visit to Russia.
Let me note that relations between Russia and Brazil have traditionally been based on friendship and understanding. The strategic partnership between the two countries includes many diverse areas. Together, we want to develop political, economic and cultural ties, and cooperate closely on the global stage, at the UN, in BRICS, and in the G20, among others.
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And today we have had quite substantive and constructive talks. Following the talks, we adopted a joint statement that sets the guidelines for the further development of Russian-Brazilian cooperation.
Our countries are definitely interested in progressively expanding economic interaction. Brazil is one of Russia’s leading trade partners in Latin America and the Caribbean, accounting for one third of all our trade with this region.
Last year, bilateral trade grew by 87 percent despite coronavirus-related complications. The intergovernmental commission plays an important role in strengthening bilateral trade and investment ties. The latest session was held in autumn of last year in Brasilia. At that time, under personal instructions from President Bolsonaro, key Brazilian government ministers in the economic sector, responsible for energy, the mining industry and agriculture, visited Russia.
In addition, we plan to soon hold a meeting of the High-Level Russian-Brazilian Commission co-chaired by the Russian Prime Minister and the Brazilian Vice President.
The Russian-Brazilian and Brazilian-Russian Councils of Entrepreneurs are working well together; they have timed a series of meetings of business representatives to the current visit by the President of Brazil, and tonight Mr Bolsonaro will speak with the business leaders on these councils.
Let me emphasise that Brazil is always widely represented at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Last year, Mr Bolsonaro greeted the participants of the SPIEF plenary session via videoconference, which we highly appreciated. Once again, I would like to thank you, Mr President, for your attention to our event in St Petersburg.
We expect that this year’s 25th forum, scheduled for June 15–18, will be attended by a high-profile delegation of Brazilian politicians, business leaders and public activists.
We note with satisfaction that our bilateral industrial cooperation is successfully expanding. And I would like to highlight the projects involving the Russian corporation Power Machines to modernise the Brazilian hydropower industry, as well as the Severstal and AVISMA projects to supply components for Brazilian high-tech industries.
Russia’s Rosatom exports fuel for Brazilian nuclear power plants and radioisotopes for medical purposes. Rosatom is also interested in participating in the construction of new power units in Brazil, including low-capacity nuclear power plants, both land and floating plants, because it has unique and extensive experience, and technologies that are not available elsewhere in the world.
Cooperation in the chemical industry and the production of environmentally friendly mineral fertiliser is progressing at a good pace. In 2021, Russian companies supplied almost 10 million tonnes of fertilisers worth about $3.5 billion to the Brazilian market.
Roscosmos and the Brazilian Space Agency are working on the implementation of the agreement on cooperation on the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation. Three GLONASS stations have already been built in Brazil, as well as an electronic optical orbital debris spotter, and there are agreements to deploy two additional stations.
Russian-Brazilian cooperation in medicine and pharmaceuticals has been gaining momentum of late. Our companies ChemRar and BIOCAD are active in promoting coronavirus and cancer drugs in the Brazilian market. A project to localise Sputnik V vaccine manufacturing in Brazil is being implemented with support from the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
During our talks with President Bolsonaro, we naturally discussed the issues of cultural interaction. We agreed to continue promoting bilateral education, cultural and sports exchanges.
For example, a range of initiatives are being worked out now for Russia to participate in the celebrations of the bicentenary of Brazil’s independence later this year.
I will also mention that Russia provides assistance to Brazil in personnel training. We have about 400 Brazilian students in Russia, about 80 of whom are studying tuition-free.
A Russian-Brazilian inter-cultural school has recently been opened in Rio de Janeiro where classes are taught in Russian and Portuguese. You may also recall that a Bolshoi Theatre school has been operating for over 20 years in the Brazilian city of Joinville. Over 250 young people from different areas of Brazil and other Latin American countries train at this unique school, the only one of its kind outside Russia.
While sharing opinions on regional and global issues, the parties stated that Russia’s and Brazil’s positions on many issues are close or overlap. The foreign and defence ministries maintain contact. Actually, the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries had their first ever meeting in the 2+2 format in Moscow this morning.
Our countries advocate the development of a multipolar world order based on international law with the central coordinating role of the UN. Given that, we are firmly committed to the principle of multilateralism and the political-diplomatic settlement of conflicts.
In view of Brazil’s status as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2022–2023, we are set to pursue our interaction more intensively across all current issues on the UN agenda.
And we will, of course, continue to cooperate with our Brazilin partners within BRICS – a respected international association that holds an important place in the contemporary multipolar world and plays an important role in the global economy.
To conclude, I would like to thank Mr Bolsonaro for our meeting. I believe that today’s talks will serve to further strengthen Russian-Brazilian relations to the benefit of our two peoples.
And finally, Mr President, I know of yesterday’s disaster in Brazil: heavy rains caused destruction and claimed lives. I want to express my condolences to you and to all the people of Brazil over this tragedy and to wish a speedy recovery to the injured.
Thank you for your attention.
President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro (retranslated): Mr President,
We talked for almost two hours; the agenda was extensive and of great interest to both our countries. I am grateful to you for your condolences. People in Petropolis and Rio de Janeiro were affected by this natural disaster. Thank you.
Mr President, we share common values: faith in God and protecting family values. We stand in solidarity with all countries that seek and do all they can to achieve peace.
We work together closely at such international venues as BRICS, the G20 and the UNO where we defend the sovereign right of nations to self-determination in line with the UN Charter and international law.
We noted the return of bilateral trade to pre-pandemic levels. Brazil is a major player in agriculture and we are pleased to see that there is interest in fertiliser supplies. We also see interested in supplies of animal-based products.
We have vast potential for developing cooperation in the sphere of oil, petroleum products and natural gas. We are striving to strengthen our high-level dialogue on oil exploration and production in deep-water deposits. We are interested in small nuclear power plants.
We are pleased to note the holding of the first military-political consultations between our foreign and defence ministers.
We are very happy that the Amazon is part of humanity’s heritage and we are grateful to you for your words in defence of our sovereignty. Thank you very much.
President Putin and I consider very important the efforts to create new dynamics in the technological alliance between Brazil and Russia. We are paying significant attention to nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT and medical research.
Brazil and Russia have the world’s biggest forests and we decided to establish a dialogue on forest protection.
Our meeting that lasted for almost two hours, I repeat, was very productive. It shows that two big powers have enormous potential for progress for the benefit of our nations.
Let me repeat that the world is our home and God is above us. We stand for peace and are ready to support all those who do the same. We support all.
Mr Putin, thank you very much for the warm welcome, the issues we discussed at today’s meeting and the trust placed in our country.
Thank you very much.