Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's speech:

Mr Azarov, ladies and gentlemen, the agenda of today's meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation covers almost every issue related to our bilateral cooperation.

I fully agree with Mr Azarov that we have recently witnessed a substantial growth in trade - by almost 80% or, to be more precise, by 77% from January to September of this year. We have stabilised our relations on energy issues and we know that the Ukrainian government is making the best possible use of additional resources, primarily for resolving social issues.

The main issue on the agenda is not even about the volume of our trade but a change in its quality. We must modernise our economies to create new high-paying jobs and we are fully capable of doing so.

We know what difficulties weighed down on our economies during the crisis. We saw a real drop. Now we are recovering at a good pace, but we still need to concentrate on high-technology industries.

If we are talking about energy, then we must first speak of the nuclear power industry, and we have made progress in this area. We have made economic agreements to reinforce our earlier achievements and to create the conditions for further success. I'm referring both to fuel supplies and the construction of nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

The same applies to the aircraft industry, shipbuilding and space exploration - this is the future of our cooperation in the next few years.

It goes without saying that we will be interested in consolidating our cooperation on existing projects and creating conditions for extending cooperation to new areas. The Business Forum opens tomorrow and we'll do all we can to support the performance of the business community and create conditions for cooperation. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to meet and discuss all of these key issues today. Thank you.