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Good afternoon, colleagues and friends.

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Allow me to welcome you to Moscow. This is not a foreign city for you.

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Many of you, probably all of you,

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have worked in Russia for some time.

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I would like to thank primarily Mr Dudley for his 

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initiative to meet in this format.

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I must say that meetings like this with our partners from European 

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and other countries are a permanent practice.

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We regularly meet with business representatives from France,

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Germany and Italy, to name a few.

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As a rule, this helps us plan our cooperation in many diverse areas,

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helps us understand what concerns our partners, if this is the case,

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and determines the most promising avenues for cooperation.

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But we know that regrettably in the past few years and up to this day 

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relations between Britain and Russia have not been at their best.

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And this is an obstacle for those who are doing positive work.

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Despite the problems in interstate relations,

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and it should be admitted that they do exist,

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thanks to the people who think positively,

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our trade grew by 23 percent in one go in 2017,

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strange as it may seem.

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After energy prices stabilized,

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it increased by another 8 percent last year to $13.7 billion.

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Cumulative British investment in the Russian economy 

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amounts today to $23.8 billion 

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while the relevant figure for Russian investment 

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in Britain exceeds $11 billion.

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More than 600 enterprises partly owned by British 

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businesses operate in our country. That is quite a large number.

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They operate in the industry in the broadest sense,

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such as mechanical engineering,

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and the pharmaceutical and other innovation-driven industries.

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The energy corporations of Russia and the UK are involved in producing 

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and processing crude oil and gas, raw materials,

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and generating and delivering electric power.

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They are jointly implementing major projects such as Nord Stream 2 and Sakhalin 3.

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And I am not even talking about BP being the largest shareholder

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in our leading oil and gas company, Rosneft.

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Experts from London’s City are involved in efforts to create 

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an international financial centre in Moscow,

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and the London Stock Exchange facilitates capital flows to Russia.

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The securities of almost all public Russian companies are 

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listed on the LSE.

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I would like to emphasise that we in Russia are doing our best to make 

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sure foreign investors, our partners and friends,

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feel comfortable working on the Russian market and do not come under 

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excessive administrative stress.

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For your information, Russia is now 31st in the World Bank’s Business Freedom Index 

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having risen dozens of places over the past five years.

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Positive dynamics continue in all key macroeconomic indicators.

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According to the latest estimates,

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the country's GDP added 2.3 percent last year.

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The growth of industrial output was even higher at 3 percent.

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Hundreds of billions of dollars will be invested in critical sectors 

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of the economy and the social sphere as part of national projects.

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I did not misspeak, we are talking about investing hundreds of billions of dollars.

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I am sure that your companies could be part of this work;

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the market is large enough for everyone.

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We hope that once implemented, these projects will have a comprehensive 

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synergetic effect on the dynamic growth of the entire country,

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and will open up significant business opportunities,

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including for the British business community.

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I would like to take this opportunity to encourage British entrepreneurs,

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 who have always been widely represented at the St Petersburg Economic Forum, 

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to take an active part in its work this year. 

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It will take place on June 6–8.

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This ends my opening remarks and I ask Mr Dudley to speak to us, please.