Vice President of the Lao PDR, Mrs Pany Yathotou and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the sound relations between Laos and Russia during talks on Sept 12 on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok, Russia.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin said, we have long-standing, very good friendly relations with your country, and you yourself have made a very noticeable contribution to the development of interstate relations. We know you as our good, reliable friend, you have visited our country several times and, as chairman of parliament, you have made a significant contribution to the development of bilateral parliamentary relations.

I ask you to convey your warmest wishes and greetings to the President of Laos, we hope to see him in Russia - I think we are planning an event in October.

Our relations are developing in many directions. One of the problems is financial calculations, but here we will talk about this now; there are ways to solve these problems.

We are developing humanitarian ties, your students are studying in our universities, including here in the Far East, your medical specialists are being trained. Contacts also continue between military departments. I am confident that all this has good prospects for development.

Vice President of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Pany Yathotou said I would like to thank you for making the decision to come to the Eastern Economic Forum. This is a good platform for establishing contacts with many partners from this region of the world and holding relevant meetings, contacts, and negotiations with Russian colleagues.

Thank you very much for the invitation to the Eastern Economic Forum. I am very grateful for your invitation, for the opportunity for our delegation to meet with you today.

We highly appreciate our meeting today; this is a good sign for the development of our joint cooperation in various fields. I would like to express my gratitude for the good assessments and warm words regarding cooperation between our countries over the past time.

I will certainly convey your greetings to our President Thongloun Sisoulith.

At the same time, I would like to convey to you the words of gratitude from our President for your invitation to participate as a special guest at this forum, however, due to the previously agreed state visit of our President to Cuba to participate in the G77 summit, Comrade Thonglun Sisoulith was not able to personally participate in this event.

I am anxiously following the development of the situation in Russia. Taking this opportunity, I would like to say that under your leadership, despite all the difficulties and challenges from outside, as well as the economic sanctions of the hostile policies of the United States and its Western allies, Russia was able to maintain internal political and social stability, the Russian economy continues to develop, and the role and influence Moscow is constantly growing stronger in the world and the region in the process of forming a multipolar world order.

At this stage, the ruling party of Laos, our government and the people are committed to implementing the decisions taken at the 11th Congress of our Party, the Ninth Five-Year Social Development Plan, as well as the two priority national programs.

KPL