President Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, dear colleagues and friends,
Allow me to wish you a warm welcome. I know that this is your first time in Russia, Mr Mullaly. But our cooperation with Boeing already goes back a long way now. We have had very close contacts since 1992 and your company has always shown itself to be a reliable partner. We work in diverse areas, in aviation and in the space sector. As far as I know, you are now to create a joint venture to produce titanium parts. Recently you have concluded contracts here worth more than $3 billion. Today’s event represents a step towards a new level of cooperation. For our part, we and all of our colleagues will be happy to support the development of your business and your activities in Russia. We are very happy to see you.
Alan Mullaly: Thank you very much, Mr President.
You know, this is indeed my first visit to Moscow, but I feel like I’m meeting with good old friends. I joined Boeing 37 years ago and I was part of the teams that designed all of Boeing’s airplanes, apart from the very first plane, the Boeing 707.
One of the reasons I joined Boeing was that Boeing believes in international cooperation, in global cooperation. I always dreamed of the time when I would be able to work with the leaders of Russia’s aviation industry. It is a great honour for me to come here to discuss everything we have already done, and more importantly, to discuss our very extensive plans for future cooperation. I am very pleased to have this honour. And you know, Mr President, we really are working very well together. We are investing together in the most advanced technology sectors, in areas such as titanium and space technology. There are approximately 2,000 Russian engineers, engineers from Russian companies, helping to create and design Boeing’s planes. I spent the morning today going round the office, met with them and thanked them.
I would like to inform you that we signed several agreements today: we signed three documents. First is the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which will enable us to expand our design work and our purchases of parts and components in Russia. The result of this is that we now have a business plan, which has been approved, for buying $18 billion worth of titanium components, parts and materials in Russia over the next ten years. What we also did today, Mr President, was to sign our first contract on creating a joint venture in the area of titanium technology with VSMPO-Avisma – my main teacher in the area of titanium technology. We have tried to set out for you on this sheet of paper everything that we are doing in Russia. Here you can see all the programmes we are working on. The results of this cooperation will benefit airlines and planes throughout the entire world.