Excerpts from the transcript:
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon. Welcome, everyone. I am delighted to see you.
As Chairman of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I would like to extend sincere gratitude to our esteemed colleagues in Turkmenistan for the warm welcome, for their unfailing hospitality and excellent organisation of events.
Today, the CIS is a key format for our multilateral dialogue on a wide range of issues, for coordinating and promoting all our joint initiatives.
As President of Russia Vladimir Putin said at the CIS Council of Heads of State in Bishkek last autumn, “next year, during Russia’s chairmanship of the Commonwealth, we will make every effort to deepen equal and mutually beneficial cooperation.”
We have thoroughly discussed our most important plans for strengthening cooperation at the heads of government level. We will continue to work together to further improve the CIS’s standing in the international arena. We will expand contacts with interested countries and associations and we will jointly address tasks aimed at improving the quality of life for our citizens. All representatives of the CIS member states agreed that this is the most important part of our work.
These priorities are outlined in the Concept for Russia’s Chairmanship of the CIS. We will also focus on the implementation of the action plan for the first stage of the CIS Economic Development Strategy until the end of this decade.
We will continue to improve the CIS free trade zone, build up our multilateral cooperation mechanisms, create favourable conditions for doing business, and create promising production and technological chains.
This certainly requires reliable logistics routes across the CIS, linked with the North-South, East-West and Northern Sea Route international corridors.
Today, we adopted an action plan for the transport sector. We are vigorously modernising transport infrastructure and introducing advanced technologies. We hope that this will open up additional opportunities for businesses, will speed up the delivery of goods, and help scale up trade in general. In a broader sense, this will certainly unlock the immense transport potential of the CIS.
My colleagues and I have also approved the Concept of Cooperation in the Energy Sector for the next decade, and a plan of priority measures needed to implement it.
Both documents, drafted by the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, are aimed at supporting the scientific and technological development of the fuel and energy sector. Their implementation involves the wide introduction of cutting-edge methods and models for managing large energy systems. The use of such methods should markedly reduce the negative impact on the environment.
A series of decisions has been taken that concern the chemical industry, including a new concept and an action plan for its implementation. To ensure economic growth today, it is imperative to transition from an economic model that relies heavily on commodity exports to an innovation- and investment-based model. All CIS member states are working on this now, focusing on creating efficient, resource- and energy-saving and naturally, environmentally friendly industries.
Another common task has to do with protecting intellectual property rights. The CIS member states are aiming for a closer cooperation arrangement that will involve their respective customs and tax services, as well as their respective interior ministries, which are part of the global fight against counterfeiting. This is a very important point because it has to do with consumer health and safety – including consumers in the CIS. It is our responsibility to ensure that they buy high-quality, reliable and proven products. One of the documents we signed today is aimed at achieving this objective.
To expand the CIS citizens’ access to medical services, including high-tech treatments, we have amended the Agreement on Compatible National Telemedicine Systems. It is an innovative project that should help establish contacts between doctors across the CIS and fight diseases more effectively.
As you know, Russia has always been and remains a reliable partner and ally, considerate of its neighbours and friends’ interests. At a time of global economic turbulence, when a new multipolar architecture of international relations is being shaped, we consider it extremely important to strengthen our ties across the board. And I am sure that today’s agreements will take us a step further along this way.
I would like to thank everyone. I appreciate your time and attention and will be looking forward to meeting again.
