The meeting was held as part of Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez’s working visit to Russia.
From the transcript:
Meeting with President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez
Dmitry Medvedev: I would like to welcome you and say how delighted I am to meet with you, Mr Diaz-Canel.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your election as President of Cuba and wish you every success in your new capacity.
I have fond memories of my recent visit to your country, in early October. I must say that we discussed a whole range of important matters and formulated a number of new ideas that, I hope, we will be able to develop and promote now, both during our meeting and during your talks with President Putin.
Please give my regards to comrade Raul. I also had a very good meeting with him where we discussed many specific topics.
You have a very busy programme today. It is also good that you visited St Petersburg, as you just told me, and saw some really interesting projects and industries there. It is always better to see things with your own eyes, so you now have a better idea of how Russian production, industry, and economy works, and how its cultural life is.
We are expecting you in Moscow on May 9 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Victory. That will also be a good opportunity to compare notes and continue our talks.
I cordially welcome you and give you the floor.
Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister, our friend Mr Medvedev.
We are delighted to be once again back in Russia. We appreciated it when you visited Cuba earlier on this month and we liked working with you. Army General Raul Castro Rus, the first secretary of our party, is very satisfied with the meeting. He sends his special regards to you. This is what he actually said – special regards! And thank you for the congratulations on my election as President of the Republic of Cuba.
I think your visit was of particular importance. During that visit, we not only evaluated the impact of joint programmes between the Russian Federation and Cuba on our socioeconomic development until 2030, but you also proposed a number of new ideas for projects and fields of cooperation.
We have been specifically working on these issues since you left. We discussed the proposals with the respective ministries concerned. The officials who are most involved in this work are part of our delegation here; they have arrived to work with their Russian counterparts. We can even say that certain agreements have been reached that allow us to move forward on these topics. The important content of our current visit has to do with these programmes. We have visited the Baltic Shipyard, where icebreakers are made. And our Minister of Energy was at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station.
Banks work with their partners. This morning, an important meeting took place with the main Russian companies participating in these projects.
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