June 7, 2019,
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60707
Vladimir Putin made
a speech at the plenary session of the St Petersburg
International Economic Forum.
Also took part
in the SPIEF session are President of China Xi Jinping, President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister of Slovakia Peter
Pellegrini and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The discussion is moderated
by journalist, RT TV Channel presenter Sophie Shevardnadze.
* * *
President of Russia Vladimir
Putin: Good
afternoon, friends and colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
I am happy to welcome
to Russia all heads of state and government, all participants
in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. We are grateful
to our guests for their attention and friendly attitude
to Russia and their willingness for joint work and business
cooperation that always rests, as business leaders know well,
on pragmatism, understanding of mutual interests and, of course,
trust in each other, frankness and clear-cut positions.
I would like to take
advantage of the SPIEF venue to tell you not only about
the goals and tasks that we in Russia have set
for ourselves but also about our views on the state
of the global economic system. For us this is not
an abstract conversation, nor an academic discussion. Russia’s
development, simply by virtue of its size, history, culture,
the human potential and economic opportunities cannot take place
outside the global context, without the correlation
of the domestic, national and global agendas.
So, what is the state
of affairs today or at least how do we in Russia see it?
Technically, global economic growth,
and
