Mikhail Mishustin’s meeting with Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the SCO Heads of Government Meeting.

Excerpts from the transcript:

Shehbaz Sharif (via interpreter): Your Excellency, welcome to Pakistan. Our relations have a rich history, which goes back to the early 1950s-1960s. I was very young back then. Moscow was the first city abroad where I went during my first foreign trip. I have very warm memories about your country.

It is time to revive these beautiful memories and also reaffirm our friendship, economic cooperation, and other aspects of our interaction, in particular in agriculture, ICT, strategic cooperation, and defence.

As I have already said, the Russians whom I have known since 1968, are very generous, kind, open, loving people.

Your Excellency, we are delighted to welcome you in Pakistan.

I also had the honour of meeting with President Putin in Astana this year and in Tashkent in 2022. We had very productive and useful meetings. At the last meeting, tangible results were achieved. A delegation from Pakistan also visited Moscow, and a Russian delegation went to Pakistan on a return visit.

Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you very much, Mr Sharif.

This is my first visit to friendly Pakistan as Prime Minister of Russia. I would like to thank you and all our Pakistani friends for the warm welcome extended to the Russian delegation taking part in the SCO Heads of Government Council meeting.

I would like to take this opportunity to convey to you and President [Asif Ali] Zardari the kindest greetings and best wishes from President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

The ties between Russia and Pakistan are based on friendship and mutual respect for each other's interests. The two countries are striving to take our cooperation to a higher level and impart new content and specific projects to it.

Our government-to-government interaction focuses on building up trade and economic cooperation. According to our statistics, in January-August, mutual trade grew by almost 13 percent and exceeded 57 billion roubles, or $633 million. However, we have to acknowledge that this is still not much, given the potential for cooperation that our economies have.

The common objective we are working towards is to create favourable conditions for the growth of trade and mutual investment - you spoke about this in detail, Mr Prime Minister - and launch new lucrative projects in various areas such as energy, industry, agriculture, infrastructure construction, logistics, and transport.

These issues are handled by the Russian-Pakistani Commission co-chaired by our Minister of Energy, Sergei Tsivilyov, who is actively participating in our work here.

In energy, we have increased the supply of Russian energy resources to Pakistan, including oil and petroleum products. Russian companies are also ready to participate in the development of Pakistan's gas industry.

Due to its advantageous geographical location at the junction of land and sea routes in South and Central Asia, Pakistan has an immense transit capacity. Tapping that potential will undoubtedly expand cargo transportation along the North-South international transport corridor with access to the growing markets of the Global South.

The first Russian-Pakistani Trade and Investment Forum, held in Moscow on October 1, gave a powerful impetus to our economic cooperation. We gladly propose holding a second forum in Pakistan and we are certain that it will help to establish direct ties between businesses on both sides - not only at the level of large companies, but also at the SME level.

We prioritise the promotion of humanitarian cooperation. There is a growing interest among young people in Pakistan in studying in Russia, in earning degrees from Russian universities. The Russian language is becoming very popular; we welcome and fully support this interest. We will help to expand people-to-people contacts.

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