Working Day

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's meeting with President Hugo Chavez continued with enlarged attendance.

Vladimir Putin: Mr President, dear Hugo, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

We are happy to greet you here.

Mr Chavez and I have discussed practically all fields of our cooperation, which has developed successfully for several years now. Though much remains to be done to enhance its scope, sizeable progress has been made already.

This concerns, first of all, our energy partnership. We have good prospects in oil and gas, electricity, infrastructure development and, last but not least, the military technical field. Though it is not the principal and determinant part of our partnership, we are glad to see our Venezuelan friends and colleagues satisfied with our interaction in this sensitive sphere.

We have signed a large package of agreements today. All documents are rich in content, and will have a major impact on our cooperation.

Mr President, I want to thank your colleagues in your presence for the preparation of your visit. We have had contacts practically every month in intense and proficient practical work to prepare each of the agreements signed today.

These ambitious projects cross the limits of bilateral relations. They concern the development of major mineral deposits and mutual supplies worth billions of dollars.

Your colleagues are tough partners at the negotiation table. They have fought staunchly for Venezuelan interests, and insisted on all i's dotted and all t's crossed in every agreement. The same can be said about the Russian Government. However, we have come to mutually acceptable compromises on every issue on the agenda.

As for foreign politics, I cannot pass in silence your statement of readiness to recognise the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We certainly regard it as coordination of our efforts on the international scene, and support of Russian efforts to make international relations more democratic. I would like to express my special thanks for that.

No doubt, this step confirms the independence of Venezuelan foreign policy.

Thank you.

Hugo Chavez (as translated): Thank you, Mr Prime Minister, my friend Vladimir. I greet all comrades once again-in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister. Thank you for your attention and brainwork.

We have just looked at the map of Russia, and Vladimir has told me about all oil and gas projects, and explained all the details of the map. On what distance does Russia stretch? It is 5,000 kilometres, if I am not mistaken.

Vladimir Putin: It is a truly vast distance.

Hugo Chavez: Immeasurable!

Vladimir Putin: But then, two cubits on the map is no distance, as the Russian saying goes.

Hugo Chavez: Thank you, Mr Prime Minister. This is out eighth visit since 2001, when you first asked us to come to Russia and we opened negotiations. I had been seeking for an opportunity of partnership, and I was lucky to meet you. The ten years since that day have been eventful. I also want to greet the Government teams as you have done-especially Mr Igor Sechin, and all members of my team, especially Minister Ramirez. I congratulate them on intense negotiations and search for new roads. Now, they have come to this agreement, which I consider absolutely perfect.

Every party has come up toughly for its national interests but we have arrived at shared interests despite all-a significant achievement.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of energy agreements. We appreciate them highly enough for Mr Rafael Ramirez not to attend an OPEC summit-something he has never done before.

As he said to me last night, the strategic importance of the agreement we had signed on the Junin-6 joint venture was hard to overestimate. It is just as big as the map of great Russia we have seen together because-as you might remember-we Venezuelans were warned several years ago about the hegemony of Western companies, mainly transnational ones. We were told that we had no oil there, that the Orinoco platform contained only bitumen and so was not taxable. They wanted to pay 1%. The experts who came from transnational companies claimed it was bitumen and was to be priced on a par with coal.

Now, an oil-extracting complex will be established thanks to major partnership setting up a joint venture. It promises 400-450 thousand barrels a day, so it will be a large company of global significance. An ambitious project is starting on the Orinoco Oil Belt with the establishment of this joint venture.

So, Vladimir, I think we have strengthened our positions in a partnership that started in 2001 and has now extended greatly.

We have just reconsidered all agreements in the mining and automotive industries. There are still questions to work at. We said two years ago that we should set up a bank. It has been almost established now, and it will work-we have no alternative.

When we were examining the map together, you told me about major Russian oil and gas projects, and I recalled what President Medvedev and I had been saying about oil giants. I insist on it. Though Venezuela might be much smaller than Russia, it is still an oil giant.

So I think we should join hands and coordinate our work. The Orinoco project is a mega project, with almost 300 billion barrels of proved reserves, as you know. That is the world's largest deposit in the territory stretching to the Atlantic. It is not far from the Caribbean, with flat terrain and friendly climate, and the deposit will be easy to work.

I hope you will visit us when we bore our first well there. I do wish you to come.

We have no alternative to an alliance that will promote the establishment of a new world-or, rather, bring its birth closer. We first met each other in quite an old world. Look how different it has become in a matter of ten years! It is a different world now. It is emerging apace, so we should be quicker to catch pace with it. When President Medvedev and I were addressing a news conference, I said it was good that we had started well beforehand. It was dawn when we took up the road in 2001. The early bird catches the worm.

So let us go on together. Venezuela is Russia's ally. You know it, and you see my country and myself as allies.

Our decision to recognise the independence and sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is just and timely. It proceeds from our coinciding views of foreign policies in a multi-polar world.

As for finance and the bank, its contacts and its importance to our economy will certainly grow. That is a must, as you have said on several occasions. I have read your analysis of the global financial crisis. It is time now for new financial architecture-and we are able to make it. I have told you, and I repeat it now for the press in your presence, that conditions are emerging for the rouble to become an international reserve currency.

We want to be the first investors in the rouble zone and rival other moneys. So I thank you again, and express my joy as I have revisited Russia and seen you even younger than before, and dynamic as always.

You and Dmitry my brother, the Russian President, are firmly holding the reins of government of our beloved Russia.

We do love Russia. It deserves our love for innumerable reasons. We were pained to see Russia getting weaker. Now, we are glad to see Russia reviving.