Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China Wang Yi on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting, Nizhni Novgorod, June 10, 2024

Mr Minister,

Friends,

We are happy to welcome you to Nizhni Novgorod, the capital of the Volga Federal District and the Nizhni Novgorod Region, which actively cooperates with the People’s Republic of China, including through the implementation of the well-known and beneficial Volga-Yangtze project. 

During our recent meeting in Astana, we exchanged thoughts on the traditional Russian-Chinese summit, which took place in May of this year. Our presidents outlined the main direction for advancing our strategic cooperation in the context of the comprehensive partnership between Russia and China. We have a special responsibility for foreign policy coordination, primarily at the UN Security Council, BRICS, SCO, G20, APEC, and other multilateral formats. The Global Majority countries have an increasingly positive perception of our engagement with our Chinese friends. The number of our opinion allies and countries interested in cooperation with BRICS and the SCO is steadily expanding.

Today’s ministerial meeting, the first after BRICS’ enlargement, will be dedicated to discussing these trends and charting guidelines for further development and determination. We will submit these to our leaders at the summit in Kazan in October 2024.