President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends,
We meet regularly and work together. We were just in Dushanbe and discussed the important matter of ensuring our countries’ security. The meeting between regional heads from Russia and Kazakhstan is no less important an occasion.
This is the twelfth such meeting. This year, we have gathered to discuss our cooperation in agriculture sector and ensuring another aspect of security – food security. I hope that many of our Kazakhstani friends will find it interesting to see all we did here to prepare for the Olympics. Today, it is more important how we are putting this legacy to use. I hope that people in Kazakhstan, watching the reports from Sochi, will also show interest in Russia’s southern resort and the seaside cluster that we have developed, as well as our current venue here in the mountains.
Welcome!
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev: Mr President, thank you for this meeting and for the chance to discuss the current matters on our agenda.
I want to start by saying that it was a successful CSTO meeting in Tajikistan and we discussed security in general. You must make a state visit to Kazakhstan – it has been a long time since you did so. We expect the CIS [meeting of the CIS Interstate Environmental Council] will be on the fifteenth, and so you should make a visit before or after then.
Vladimir Putin: Ok.
Nursultan Nazarbayev: Let’s think about it, discuss it and agree.
This interregional forum is very important, all the more so when the economy faces turbulent times. There has been a drop in trade turnover, due to the drop in export prices and trade, and our national currencies’ instability. At the same time, I think that our governments are working well, settling current matters, and today, we have the chance to discuss some of the issues that need our attention.
Everything is normal overall. Some people say that the Eurasian Union is not producing any result. I think though that the results are slow in coming not because the Eurasian Union is bad, but because the situation today is such. This is the current trend in the economy. This is not the first time we have gone through crises, slumps and recoveries, and we need to take things calmly and look for new areas in which we can work to get our trade on the increase again.
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you.
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