President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues and friends. It is a great pleasure to see you.
Russia’s relations with Volkswagen go back a long way. The company has been working here since 1993, I think. Its investment and sales have reached a good level today, and Volkswagen accounts for 11 percent of the cars sold on our market. I think that around 10 percent of the vehicles produced here are sold abroad. This is a good result too. Volkswagen benefits from the incentives the Russian Government offers, and with their help, is selling quite a large number of vehicles.
We are very pleased to see that your business is developing well overall, though we are aware of the difficulties that exist with sales. We are always ready to discuss any questions you may have in order to help you to further develop your business on our market.
I am very happy to see you.
CEO of Volkswagen AG Matthias Mueller (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President, for the invitation, for the chance to meet with you today, and for your time.
Yes, we have longstanding relations with Russia. We started producing cars here in Russia more than 10 years ago now. Our investment now comes to more than 1.750 million euros. We are happy with our cooperation and are pleased to have this opportunity today to discuss the automotive industry’s development in Russia, and the development of industry in general here. We are pleased too to offer our support to Russia in order to develop our relations together with success.
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