RUSSIA, March 3 - Mikhail Mishustin’s meeting with Rustam Emomali, Chairman of the National Assembly of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic Tajikistan
3 March 2023
Mikhail Mishustin’s meeting with Rustam Emomali, Chairman of the National Assembly of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic Tajikistan
3 March 2023
Mikhail Mishustin’s meeting with Rustam Emomali, Chairman of the National Assembly of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic Tajikistan
3 March 2023
Mikhail Mishustin and Rustam Emomali, Chairman of the National Assembly of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic Tajikistan
3 March 2023
Mikhail Mishustin’s meeting with Rustam Emomali, Chairman of the National Assembly of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic Tajikistan
Excerpts from the transcript:
Rustam Emomali: Mr Prime Minister, members of the Russian delegation, I am delighted to welcome you to sunny Tajikistan.
Mr Mishustin, we are meeting on your birthday. It is a wonderful opportunity to wish you a happy birthday, good health, a long life, happiness and many achievements in your work for the government in the name of stability and prosperity of great Russia.
We are happy that you have come to Tajikistan and that we can exchange views on the current aspects of relations between Tajikistan and Russia. Tajikistan attaches great importance to the development of multifaceted cooperation with the Russian Federation. We are very pleased that the Tajik-Russian relationship of friendship and cooperation is developing dynamically in all areas. The Russian Federation is one of Tajikistan’s main strategic partners and a reliable ally. Our interparliamentary ties are a vital part of the network of relations between Tajikistan and Russia. In this context, I would like to point out that our interparliamentary ties are gradually advancing to a qualitatively new high level. We have established regular contacts between our parliaments and are closely cooperating at the multilateral level in the CIS and CSTO interparliamentary assemblies. The inter-chamber parliamentary commission on cooperation is an effective mechanism. Our parliaments are contributing to the strengthening of our countries’ strategic partnership. I am confident that our mutual desire to promote multifaceted cooperation meets our common interests.
Mr Mishustin, please.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Emomali. I am delighted to meet with you. Please let me convey the best wishes from President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
This is my first visit to Tajikistan as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. I want to thank all our Tajik friends for the spectacular organisation of all events as part of the visit and the forum we held yesterday. I also want to thank you for active interaction with your colleagues, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko (today we are accompanied by her deputy Mr Zhuravlev) and State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.
We sincerely value our historically allied and brotherly relations with Tajikistan. They are based on the treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, and this year, we will mark its 30th anniversary. On 28 June 2022, Vladimir Putin and Emomali Rahmon reached practical agreements on expanding our interaction on the entire bilateral agenda. Of course, our task is to implement the decisions taken by our leaders.
Our trade and economic cooperation is developing; trade has increased by 18 percent and reached $1.5 billion. But this is not enough, as I said at the conference yesterday. Russian companies and private individuals’ total investments in Tajikistan total 1.6 billion. Is it a lot or not enough? Not enough. We believe that it is necessary to increase this volume and are doing everything in our power to make new projects appear.
We are seeing significant potential for boosting interaction in energy, machine-building, industrial production, transport, agriculture, construction and digital economy.
As the leader of the National Assembly of Tajikistan, you pay a great deal of attention to strengthening inter-parliamentary interaction. In December 2022, you had a meeting with Vyacheslav Volodin. In February 2022, Valentina Matvienko visited Tajikistan.
We are interested in deepening interregional cooperation. Over 70 Russian regions have been developing business ties with Tajikistan. Approximately 260 leaders of Russian companies have come with us; the forum brought together 600 participants. I think it was a success.
I also want to say that priority areas of our cooperation include education and science. Last September, Vladimir Putin and Emomali Rahmon opened five secondary schools in Tajikistan. Yesterday, we visited one of them, named after Yuri Gagarin. And, of course, we would like to continue this interaction. Schools become the points of attraction for young people and children. They then continue their education at Russian and Tajik universities, make friends and develop our bilateral relations.
