Russia-Central Asia Summit • President of Russia
The Presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are considering further development of interaction between the Russian Federation and the Central Asian states in various places.
On the agenda are, in particular, measures to protect against major trade and economic interests in a protected geopolitical environment and security issues in the situation in Afghanistan.
The meeting is taking place in Astana in the year of the 30th anniversary of the seizure of relations between Russia and South Asia.
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Speech at the First Russia-Central Asia Summit
V. Putin: <… Уверен>that the new format of our communication will be safe, this is, so to speak, an additional cost.
The situation in the world pushes and complicates the activation of all interactions between us, and even in the disease it is not easy, and most importantly, there is a side from the outside to prevent the development of ours with the participation of a wide range of the population, the close ties that have developed over the history and close interaction in politics are violated, in the economy, in the humanitarian sphere.
In our opinion, truly coordinated joint steps by our countries are really needed at present, both to build up alliance and dependence on partnerships, and to increase the stability of our economies.
For its part, Russia has discovered many observed cooperations, taking into account Central Asian ones, in particular, to the discovery of new value chains that ensure the implementation of the functions of enterprises, building alternative logistics schemes.
We are also interested in countries joining large-scale republican initiatives on import substitution, other programs and projects, and I am sure this will allow us to use the development of all our economies, the acquisition of new competencies.
On the whole, Russia’s interaction with the Central Asian five cannot but attract attention. Thus, over the past five years, Russia’s trade with the states of the region has doubled to $37.1 billion. According to the results of the first half of the year, mutual trade increased by another 16 percent. For five years – 37 [миллиардов]but only for the first half of the year – 16 [процентов] growth. Russia is a private investor in the countries of Central Asia: foreign private investments amount to about five billion dollars.
The process of reconfiguring the settlement mechanisms has been launched, excluding the unnecessary participation of Western companies and operations in them. Instead of SWIFT, we have already switched to using for settlements under contracts, which has proven itself in the Russian messaging system similar to the national systems of your countries, we are expanding the practice of opening priority correspondent accounts between credit financial institutions.
Cooperation between Russia and the five countries in the field of energy security is deepening. We are talking about a partnership to create capacities, build nuclear farms, and introduce digital technologies. In particular, our country is ready to provide practical assistance in restoring the unified system of Central Asia, which, of course, increases the energy security of all countries in the region.
To be continued.