President of Russia
Vladimir Putin answered journalists’ questions on the results
of the two-day G20 Summit.
July
8, 2017
17:20
Hamburg
1 of 7
News
conference following the G20 Summit.
July 8, 2017
President of Russia
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,
Allow
me to skip any statements and monologues. You have seen
and heard everything, a great deal. Let us get straight
to questions.
Go
ahead, please.
Question: Mr President, both
experts and ordinary people, some of whom are rampaging near this
building now, are known to have different opinions
on the usefulness of G20 summits. At this summit,
for example, there was more talk about your meeting with Mr Trump.
And yet which of the issues discussed by the G20 is
most relevant for Russia? Thank you.
Vladimir Putin:
G20 is primarily an economic forum, even though many political
and similar issues emerge. Nevertheless, the main issue is
the development of the global economy, and this is what
received the greatest attention.
We
agreed on determining global economy sustainability principles,
and this is vitally important for working along the same
standards.
Then
we continued with the issue which in fact had been launched
in St Petersburg: money laundering and everything connected with tax
havens and tax evasion. It is a crucial matter with practical
implications.
Next,
no less important and also connected with the economy, a related
but very important issue – the fight against terror, tracking money
flows to prevent the funding of terrorism.
Finally,
a very big and very sensitive issue is climate change. I think
in this respect the Federal Republic of Germany chairing
the G20 has managed to reach the best compromise
in a difficult situation the chairing nation has found itself
in, namely due to the US quitting the Paris Climate Agreement.
An agreement was reached, a compromise, when all the countries
have recorded that the United States pulled out of the agreement
but they are ready to continue cooperating in certain areas
and with certain countries on addressing climate change challenges.
I think this is a positive result in itself, which can be
credited to Chancellor Merkel.
There
are other issues we looked into. For example, digital economy. Here we
proposed adopting common rules in the area of digital economy,
defining cyber security and designing a comprehensive system
of behaviour rules in this sphere.
