OREANDA-NEWS. March 28, 2012. Dmitry Medvedev met with President of South Africa Jacob Zuma in New Delhi, where the two leaders will take part in the BRICS summit. The meeting between the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will take place on March 29, 2012.

Mr Medvedev and Mr Zuma discussed opportunities for developing trade, economic, and humanitarian ties, and stepping up cooperation in international organisations and groups.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Mr President, I give you my warmest greetings and am very pleased to see you.

We have both just arrived from the nuclear summit in Seoul. That was a very useful event given the issues facing humanity today regarding the use of nuclear energy, the opportunities that nuclear energy offers us, and the need to prevent violations in this area.

We are here in India now to take part in the BRICS summit. This group, the BRICS group, is still in the process of development, but its member-countries are all fast-growing economies and it is extremely important for us to meet regularly to exchange information and learn about what our friends are doing, what economic policies they are following, and in some cases work out a coordinated position given the global economy’s current difficulties and the fact that as fast-growing markets we also have an influence on the general situation in the world. In this same way, we can help to influence development in our countries too.

I am therefore very pleased to have this chance to exchange views with you on relations between our two countries. South Africa is one of Russia’s biggest partners on the African continent. I have said on many occasions that our ties have great potential. For now, our political ties are perhaps a lot stronger than our economic relations, and so we have a lot of work to do to help our economic cooperation to develop as successfully as our political contacts.

I propose this agenda for our meeting today and am of course ready to discuss any other issues you might wish to raise.