At the ceremony, the academic council of MEPhI presented Mr Zubkov with an honorary degree for his assistance in establishing the Institute of Financial and Economic Security at MEPhI.

The two officials discussed preparations for the State Duma hearing on the 2010-2012 federal budget.

"The Russian-Finnish Forest Summit is due in St Petersburg on Sunday. This is why I deem it necessary for the Russian Government to explicitly define its position on the use of forest resources, the development of the timber processing industry, and the basic principles of cooperation with our foreign partners. Obviously, we cannot be content with just supplying raw timber and with the current state of the industry."

“The Russian Government and the Central Bank of Russia maintained the stability of the country’s banking system amid the global financial downturn and protected the national currency from dramatic fluctuations that can be so painful for people and for companies.”

The two officials discussed bilateral relations between Russia and Brunei at their meeting.

“It is necessary to continue to foster administrative reform, abolish the state’s unnecessary powers, minimise the number of inspections, and switch from the practice of giving authorisation to providing recommendations.”

“We have decided to officially submit our application to host the World Cup in 2018. We wanted to inform you about this today. A week ago, on October 9, I signed an executive order in order to make this process more official.”