VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
CEO Nils Andersen told Mr Putin about company activities in container shipping, oil and natural gas extraction, shipbuilding and retail.
Mr Putin also saw an exhibition of models of offshore oil derricks, container carriers and gas liquefying plants, which Mr Andersen described as the largest in the world, and met with top company managers.
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Nils Smedegaard Andersen (via interpreter): Mr Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and an honour to greet you here. I have had the pleasure of working in the Russian market for more than ten years, during which we saw Russian and European businesses draw closer together. Our company is sure that the potential for cooperation has not yet been exhausted.
We were very glad to receive Russia's support during last year's harsh winter, especially the help of Russian icebreakers.
I am glad to welcome you here.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you, Mr Andersen.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am also very glad to be here. We had an extensive discussion with the Danish prime minister today. The spectacular progress of our cooperation would be impossible without support from the government of Denmark.
We have a long-standing partnership with your company and, I think, even longer with you, Mr Andersen – I mean your work with the brewing company Carlsberg. Some people might think that Denmark exports only beer and pork to Russia. They are wrong, though beer and pork are exported on quite a large scale. We imported 10,000 Danish pigs last year alone. As for beer, the amount is too large to take stock of – an ocean of it.
We cooperate in other fields too – transport, in particular. This cooperation with your company and others is expanding, including the two routes we have talked about. Prime Minister Rasmussen attended the opening of one of them, the St Petersburg-Ecuador route. Another one, to Morocco, is ready now. There are other routes, as well. We are reopening the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic Ocean from Europe to the Asia-Pacific Region. The first foreign vessel to travel it was Danish. With the navigation season prolonged, our experts think that the volume of shipments can grow tenfold in the coming years. This is a welcome prospect as transport costs on this route are much smaller than through the Suez Canal.
Danish companies have an opportunity not only to develop and use this route but also to take part in its technological facilities. This implies two huge separate businesses. We can and must continue cooperation in the development of oil and gas fields. I have the highest opinion of your participation in oil production in the Caspian Sea, and in equipping such production – primarily due to its environmental friendliness and the cutting-edge technology used. In this regard, partnership not only with LUKoil but also with leaders of the Russian energy industry such as Gazprom and Rosneft can continue in other parts of Russia – the Black Sea, the North and the Far East, where there are also several fields of cooperation: the production of derricks and other equipment, delivery of the oil and gas to shore, and the development of equipment manufacturing in Russia.
There is another sphere of cooperation that we should expand – the development of seaports in Russia. This concerns at least three ports. The first project, based in Kaliningrad, envisages the technical equipment of the port infrastructure and the management of commodity channels. The other projects concern one of the Black Sea ports and the Ust-Luga port outside St Petersburg.
These and other prospective fields of cooperation are in demand, and we are willing to start implementing relevant projects immediately. In fact, partnership is already underway on many of them, and we need only one thing – the prime minister's support.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen (via interpreter): You can count on it. What matters even more is that there are efficient businesses in Denmark that are busy outside the country. Moller-Maersk is a great example of this and a symbol of our successful cooperation.
I would also like to thank Mr Nils Smedegaard Andersen for giving us the opportunity to visit this company.
It is important particularly because of the positive role that Moller-Maersk is playing in Russia. I remember well how you and I celebrated the opening of the St Petersburg-Ecuador transport route last year. The name of Moller-Maersk also stands for the wide range of Danish businesses that are interested and involved in Russia. As we said today, the link between political priorities and Danish industrial capabilities is evident in energy efficiency and logistics. So I will be glad to see Moller-Maersk have an increased presence in Russia.
