"Let us start with the fact," Mr. Putin stated, " that it is the first summit in the history of Russian-Brazilian relations, and secondly, we witness positive dynamics in their development."
"Brazil is one of the largest countries in Latin America and, most importantly, it is the country with great development potential. Even today, our trade turnover is estimated at $2 billion and we have promising perspectives for the development and improvement of our economic cooperation," Mr. Putin said.
"Our cooperation in the sphere of world politics is also expanding and here, again, we have a lot of promising opportunities," the head of the Russian state emphasized.
He reminded the journalists that during 2004-2005 Brazil would become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
"Russia and Brazil have coinciding approaches toward the evaluation of global processes and the development of modern, democratic international relations. In that respect, Russia considers Brazil as its important partner," the Russian President stressed.
Mr. Putin expressed the hope that he and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be able to exchange opinions on the development of the global situation.
"Yet we will certainly focus on economic cooperation between our countries," Mr. Putin continued.
"We have ample perspectives of diversification of our relations with the emphasis on cooperation in advanced technology spheres, including space exploration, energy industry, and nuclear power industry in particular. I also hope that we will be able to strengthen our growing cooperation in the military-technological sphere," he said.
Mr. Putin stated that Russia is willing to supply Brazil with military equipment and establish mutual cooperation in the sphere of weapons manufacturing.
The Russian President expressed gratitude to the Brazilian government for allowing Russian companies to participate in a tender for re-equipment of the Brazilian Air force.
"I am sure that after Brazilian experts will have studied the capabilities of the Russian aircraft, we would have all chances to win the tender," Mr. Putin said.
"Everyone knows that Russia has plenty of interesting and promising developments in the military-technological sphere. We are ready to both supply Brazil with appropriate military equipment and establish cooperation with Brazilian specialists in the sphere of weapons manufacturing," the Russian President emphasized.
"This sphere is generally associated with high technologies and in this respect we count on closer cooperation between our scientific communities," emphasized Mr. Putin.
At the same time, the Russian President expressed hope that the two countries will also be able to strengthen cooperation in traditional spheres of economy, such as agriculture.
According to Mr. Putin, the restrictions on Brazilian exports of meat products to Russia were imposed due to warnings about their contamination with some animal diseases.
"Unfortunately, those diseases are extremely rare in Europe. We do not even have antidotes for proper treatment of these diseases," the Russian President explained. He also stressed that the restrictions were applied only to meat products that had not passed thermal treatment.
