President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President,
Welcome to the Russian Federation! As we planned during our meeting at the G8 summit, we are now beginning bilateral talks, and I hope that they will have a productive continuation and bring good results.
I hope that our talks will send a strong signal for developing big bilateral projects and taking our economic cooperation to a higher level. We will set the start for interesting new events and discuss various international affairs, all the more so as the world is in a difficult economic situation at present and I think that this context makes productive bilateral relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea all the more valuable.
Once again, I welcome you to Moscow and I am sure that we will succeed in writing a new page in the development of Russian-Korean relations today.
President of The Republic of Korea Lee Myung-Bak: It is a great pleasure for me to meet with you in Moscow.
You called me to congratulate me on my inauguration as President, and I would like to thank you for this. We met in Japan and had very productive talks. As I promised, I have now come to Moscow. It is a great pleasure and honour to meet with you.
The whole world faces a worsening financial situation at the moment, but Russia nevertheless continues to show strong economic growth. This is the only [positive] event in the whole world, and it gives me a high opinion of the Russian Government’s work. I think these achievements are the fruit of President Medvedev’s and the Russian Government’s wise leadership.
In this situation of economic crisis throughout the world we can take steps together with the Russian Federation and work together to strengthen the world financial system.
I hope that today’s summit will give us the chance to discuss in more detail the development of our bilateral relations and implementation of joint projects.