In a few hours a two-day G20 summit will start in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Its main theme is ‘The building of an innovative, healthy, coherent and inclusive global economy.’ Unlike last year's November summit in Turkey, where Russia's voice was tried not to be heard, the current G20 summit will be focused directly on the Russian leader.
Vladimir Putin has arrived in Hangzhou from Vladivostok, where the East Economic Forum took place. The president began his visit with bilateral meetings, already having a talk with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For three days Putin will hold talks with the leaders of Argentina, Egypt, France, Germany and other countries.
The official summit program will begin tomorrow, when the Russian president will participate in the first working session of the forum dedicated to the strengthening of economic policy coordination, as well as at the official reception on behalf of President Xi Jinping. On the same day Putin will take part in an informal meeting of the BRICS leaders, which traditionally takes place on the eve of the G20 summit. Fully-length negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are also planned.
The Russian leader has already announced the issues that are of the greatest interest on the agenda of the G20 summit, when speaking at the World Economic Forum: innovative development, the international financial architecture and the removal of barriers to trade.
"I would like to draw attention to the two points that are of the greatest interest, and that fully meet the interests of Russia and the Far East region, and they are formulated appropriately by our Chinese friends. The first is innovative development, we talk about it all the time, we talked about it at the G20 meeting when it was held in Russia, and we believe it is extremely important,’’ Putin said, noting that the future of the economy is in innovative technologies, RIA Novosti reported.
"The second part is the international financial architecture. Yes, recently we have seen the expansion of quotas for the developing economies of the IMF, but we believe that this is not enough, bearing in mind the growing weight of the emerging economies," the Russian President said.
In addition, Putin believes it is important to discuss removing barriers to trade. ‘’In the framework of APEC we are discussing it constantly, taking steps, and ... of course we need to seek the expansion of the economic freedom space and to think about free economic zones and other forms of cooperation,’’ he said.
"All this is of great interest to us," Putin concluded.
Attention is also focused on the Russian leader because today Russia bases its foreign policy on a new platform, where the priority is not Europe, nor the United States, nor even the West in general, but ‘Greater Eurasia’, where Russia is building long-term relationships with the leading countries of South-East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam), as well as with India, Central Asia and the major powers in the Middle East.
The chairman of the host country and President of China, Xi Jinping, spoke about the need for the G20 countries to abandon the outdated logic of the 'cold war' and to play a constructive role in ensuring international peace and stability.
