President Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister,
I am happy to have this chance to meet you once again. By way of self-criticism I must say that, although we have not taken serious and significant steps to develop our relations as we should have, they are developing nevertheless. At any rate, our business communities are working together and our relations are growing all the time in the economic and financial sectors.
I wanted to thank you, Mr Prime Minister, for your interest in our plans to develop free economic zones. I know, as everyone knows well, that Singapore has a lot of experience in developing free economic zones. Our colleagues are meeting quite regularly to discuss this area and I hope that our cooperation in this area will not just be consultative but will result in practical projects being realised, taking into account your business community’s interests in developing relations with the Russian Federation.
Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong (translated from Russian): Mr President,
I am very pleased to meet with you and I thank you for being able to meet me, even though I know that you arrived here only a short time ago and have a very busy schedule.
As you rightly noted, our bilateral relations indeed are developing, even though you and I have not the opportunity to meet personally until today.
But our business community representatives are meeting and are developing relations among themselves for the common good. I can also note the contacts that have taken place between your minister, Mr Gref, and my minister and deputy for economic and education affairs, Lee Ban Yew.
In particular, there were many meetings with business representatives during the visit. We hope that these contacts and meetings will continue and that our discussions will help us to better understand your priorities and your vision of the possibilities for developing our relations and our mutual prospects.