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BRICS Leaders' Limited Attendance Meeting
Remarks by Vladimir Putin, president, Russian Federation
Ufa, Russia, July 9, 2015
Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen, friends, good afternoon one more time.
It is a pleasure to welcome all my colleagues and friends at another BRICS Summit. Today we are going to discuss the entire range of issues dealing with interaction within our association, coordinate and make new important decisions designed to further raise the authority of our organisation and its influence on the political and economic processes.
Russia attaches great significance to the success of this summit and we tried to do everything to make our joint work substantive and fruitful, beneficial for the development of our economies and citizens.
Friends, I now give you the floor to make your brief statements.
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BRICS leaders expanded meeting
Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
We continue our meeting in expanded format with the participation of our delegations. In line with the agenda, we will have a detailed discussion of the pressing issues pertaining to BRICS activities, primarily in the economic sphere.
The organisation's member states play an important role in the global economy. At the end of last year, the BRICS aggregate GDP exceeded $32 trillion, which is a 60 percent growth since the foundation of BRICS accounting for almost 30% of the global GDP.
BRICS nations produce a third of the world's industrial products and one half of agricultural goods. We have huge human resources: 43% of the world population - this is an enormous consumer market with a constantly growing demand for modern goods and services.
Close economic cooperation ties the BRICS nations closer together. Internal trade is growing - it has gone up by 70% since 2009, while Russia's trade with its member states, for instance, has doubled.
Last year, the BRICS economies attracted 20.5% of the world's total direct foreign investment, while in 2009 the number stood at only 16.9%. The share of our countries in capital investment on the global markets has gone up significantly - from 9.7 to 14%.
Significant work has been done to strengthen economic cooperation between the BRICS nations. I would like to note that we see this as support from all our partners in this organisation, and I would like to thank you, colleagues, for this.
Significant work has been done to implement the resolutions of last year's summit in Fortaleza, Brazil. One of the top achievements was the launch of the Currency Reserve Pool and the New Development Bank. Our countries have successfully completed the ratification of the relevant agreements.
We have approved the procedures for the Currency Pool bodies and appointed heads of the New Bank: Mr Kamath representing India is the bank's President, and vice-presidents from Russia, Brazil, China and South Africa will assist him in his work.
The Currency Reserve Pool with a capital of $100 billion will make it possible to timely and adequately respond to financial market fluctuations. The New Bank, in its turn, with a capital of another $100 billion, will implement large-scale development projects in the organisation's member states.
We expect to see the first ones launched next year. As we have seen earlier today during the meeting with representatives of the BRICS Business Council, companies from our countries are ready to create joint ventures and enhance mutual investment and trade.
Among the documents prepared for approval by the summit is the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy through 2020. It sets the task of making our economies more competitive on the global markets, strengthening ties in energy, high technology, agriculture, science and education. Russia has also drafted a road map for BRICS investment cooperation. We expect our partners to contribute to it so that we could finalise the document before the end of the year.
We had consultations with our business representatives and have already placed some 50 projects and business initiatives on this roadmap. These include proposals to set up an Energy Association, create an International Centre for Energy Studies and a Foundry Union.
The joint use of navigation systems, including the Russian GLONASS, opens up broad opportunities. Russian companies are interested in developing cooperation in such areas as production of medical and electronic equipment, software and other.
We also propose launching within the framework of this organisation, a mechanism for joint studies of competition and unification of anti-trust regulation, developing closer cooperation on the subjects of labour and employment, population and workforce migration - as I have already said today, I had a detailed discussion on this issue with the leaders of BRICS trade union organisations. They supported Russia's initiative to hold meetings of relevant ministers.
Russia considers broader humanitarian cooperation within BRICS of major importance. The Agreement on Cooperation in Culture that our ministers are to sign today aims at further deepening the friendly ties between our peoples.
The year of Russia's presidency saw the first meetings of the Civic BRICS, the BRICS Parliamentary and Youth forums. We are working on the issue of creating a BRICS Network University and are analysing the initiative to create a Council of the regions of the BRICS nations.
The launch of a ‘virtual secretariat' will contribute to further reinforcement of the organisation's institutional foundations. This modern internet portal will make it possible to further simplify interaction between our countries, while the public will get access to current information on the BRICS activities.
These and many other products developed during Russia's presidency have found their reflection in the Ufa Declaration and Action Plan. These are complex documents that we are to approve at the end of our meeting; they set the key targets not only for the coming year, but for a longer term as well.
I would like to thank you for your attention and give the floor to Mr Narendra Mori, Prime Minister of India, the country that will take over the presidency of this organisation next year.
Narendra Modi (via interpreter): Thank you very much. I would like to thank President Putin for the hospitality and the excellent organisation of this event.
We appreciate his decision to hold the summit in such a beautiful region, and we would like to express our gratitude to President Dilma Rousseff, who hosted us last year.
We have made serious progress, and I thank my colleagues for their support. Some 650 cities in India have been cooperating within BRICS. BRICS can be a beacon of hope in a world of economic and political turmoil and upheaval because our initiatives are not only geared toward the member countries, but also toward the whole world, especially emerging countries.
We had very productive discussions in the narrow format and during the working lunch. We are presently faced with serious global challenges and the need to build consensus and cooperation among major countries, and we must adhere to international norms and rules.
We are meeting here on the year of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. This is a landmark year. It is time to take important decisions related to climate change.
No matter what challenges we face - social, political, or economic - we will deal with them more effectively if we complete the UN reform - particularly in the UN Security Council - within the approved timeframe. We urgently need to carry out these reforms if we want this global organisation to retain its importance and relevance in the 21st century.
Continued socio-economic progress requires maintaining peace and stability. We need to work together to ensure this foundation, to fight terrorism and extremism, and we should speak with one voice to ensure security. We should be united, should not discriminate against anyone, and should talk about sponsors and objectives. We have to work so both within BRICS, the UN Security Council, and the Security Council Committees. We need to work together to eradicate poverty by 2030. We must make sure that this goal is a priority on the development agenda after 2015.
We have achieved some impressive objectives in the economic field within the BRICS framework. We have established the New Development Bank, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, and export credit and innovation project financing processes. There are also proposals on customs cooperation and reinsurance arrangements.
The Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership will be approved today. It is a landmark in the evolution of BRICS. It contains an array of social initiatives. I am delighted that the Indian proposals, which were made at Fortaleza, have been included in this strategy. At our limited attendance meeting, we discussed the economic situation and cooperation between our auditing institutions. I made some proposals on the issue.
Climatic conditions are one of the principal challenges today. The BRICS countries should complement one another. We have both the expertise and resources to ensure that renewable energy is used more actively and so that we can provide access to renewable energy sources and energy efficiency technology to all.
I would like the New Development Bank also to finance clean energy projects. Ideally, these projects would be implemented by each of our five countries.
The BRICS countries should cooperate more closely to adopt the Paris climate agreement this year. We can consider an initiative, within the framework of BRICS, which will propose new solutions in the management, development, social inclusion and empowerment of the people. India will be happy to be on the cutting edge of these efforts.
Regarding digital technology, we can make this more effective. We can expand financial and other rights and opportunities for our citizens with the help of digital technology.
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Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,
Thank you so much for these interesting and informative reports. I would like to extend special thanks to Prime Minister Modi, President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China, President of the Republic of South Africa Mr Zuma and Ms Rousseff. In your remarks you shared your analysis of the ongoing developments in the world and in our countries, and you put forward specific proposals to build up our organisation.
If you'll allow me, I'd like to thank all of our colleagues here on your behalf. It is through their efforts and the efforts of their employees and staff that drafted the documents that are being agreed upon and will be signed.
I would like to thank you for this part of our work. The next stage of our joint programme today is the signing of a number of documents, following which I will make a statement to the media in my capacity of the head of the host country.
Thank you very much.
Source: Russian Presidency of the 2015 Ufa Summit