Plenary session of Russian Energy Week International Forum

This year, the 7^th edition of REW, themed Energy Cooperation in a Multipolar World, brought together over 4,000 participants from more than 50 countries.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen, friends, colleagues,

I am delighted to welcome you all to Moscow, to the 7^th Russian Energy Week.

This forum has long become a permanent fixture in the business schedule of the global energy sector, once again bringing together the heads of leading companies and industry organisations, government officials, prominent specialists, experts, and journalists.

This year, more than 4,000 participants from over 50 countries will be discussing the most important issues on the energy agenda, and the challenges that both producers and consumers of energy resources are facing around the world.

In addition, this forum is an excellent opportunity to establish new contacts, make deals and exchange views on the long-term prospects of the fuel and energy sector.

Modern energy is one of the key sectors enabling global development. Its smooth operation based on transparent and predictable rules, when deposits are developed and resources are extracted, processed and supplied to the market without interruption, creates a solid foundation for economic growth, social progress, and improvement of the people's living standards.

Unfortunately, this truism is being increasingly disregarded by those who resort to illegal sanctions, believing that such tactics can give them benefits and advantage in the energy market.

What are we talking about here? Historically, the main elements of the supply infrastructure of the global energy market happened to be consolidated in the West. I am referring to innovative mining solutions, logistics, insurance of resource supply, and the system of payments for these operations. Taken together, this constitutes a global energy platform on a par with technologies.

The Western elites believed that they could close access to these services for the countries they regard as inappropriate politically, thereby pushing them to the curb of progress, or more precisely, squeezing them out of the market. I believe that many would agree with me that all these instruments are being used above all for unfair competition.

The reason for this is obvious: the West does not want competition because it cannot handle it, because it loses the competition if it plays fair, which is why it resorts to discrimination presenting it as so-called Euro-Atlantic solidarity, the protection of human rights, and the like. There are many other pretexts.

What does this lead do? By closing access to its platform, the West has only encouraged the development of alternative solutions, alternative logistics, insurance and international settlement systems, as well as technological innovations. Of course, it is not a simple process, and it involves hard work by those involved, but the process is going on progressively.

I would like to emphasise that these solutions are mostly immune to external influence. And since they are being gradually shaped on a fundamentally new technological basis, they are becoming more effective by the day and, which is even more important, more widespread, first of all in the countries that are gathering momentum and demonstrating a high economic development pace.

To be continued.