Vladimir Putin and Klaus Schwab “Go Way Back”. Does Putin Support the Covid Vaccine?
mr schwab dear uh dear colleagues i’ve visited davos
many times assisting uh meetings starting from the 90s mr schwartz just mentioned that we met
each other first in back in 1992. uh in sun peace and when i worked in south
beach i visited uh this for many times i’d like to thank you uh for this opportunity today uh for me
to make my statement vis-a-vis the expert community which is participating in this or thanks
to your efforts mr schwab first of all uh ladies and gentlemen i’d like to welcome welcome all world economic forum
participants and i’d like to start with the following it’s rather gratifying in spite of the
pandemics it’s rather gratifying to see that this year despite of the restrictions caused by the coronal eraser in the
virus the forum continues its work online it has provided an opportunity for the
participants to engage in an open and free discussion and share their evaluations and
forecasts and it partially makes up for the lack of direct communication between the leaders of
states global businesses and the world community that has accumulated over the past months
all of this is important now that we are when we are facing
so many complex issues requiring solutions um this foray is the first for in the
third decade of 21st century and the majority of its topics are dedicated to
the profound changes which are taking place in our play uh in in the world it is indeed hard to ignore the
fundamental transformations in global economy politics social life and technology
the coronavirus pandemic that which you mentioned uh before has become a major
challenge to the entire mankind has just spurred or accelerated the structural changes
the preconditions for which have been already in place for many years the pandemic has
sincere weighted the problems uh and imbalances that accumulated in the world earlier we have every reason to
believe that the tensions might aggravate even further and such tendencies might emerge in
almost every area naturally there are no direct
parallels in history but some experts however and i do respect their opinion they compare
the current situation to the late uh 20s or early 30s of the last century one can may
agree or disagree with such opinion such an opinion yet one cannot but draw some parallel
in terms of many aspects the scale as well as the cross-cutting and systemic nature of challenges and
potential threats we see the crisis we’re witnessing the crisis of previous
models and tools of economic development social stratification is increasing both globally and
in individual countries we mentioned this before but today it causes a sharp polarization in
public opinions uh populism right and left-wing radicalism
and other extreme movements are on the rise domestic political processes including
in leading economies are escalating and becoming more violent all of this cannot but
impact the nature impact the nature of international relations making them less
stable and predictable international institution institutions are weakening regional conflicts conflicts are
multiplying the global security system is degrading and klaus just mentioned my yesterday’s phone uh call
uh phone talk with the u.s president and we have agreed about the uh
extending the start uh agreement it’s a correct step but anyway uh the contradictions are
multiplying and it is well known that in the 20th
century the failure and inability to essentially resolve such issues resulted in a catastrophic world war of
course nowadays such a heated conflict is not possible i hope that it’s not possible in principle
because it will mean the end of our civilization but i’d like to reach rate however that
the situation might develop unpredictably and uncontrollably if we will sit on our hands doing
nothing to avoid it and there is a possibility that we may experience an actual
collapse of global development that might result in a fight of all against all the warring parties
would attempt to tackle the escalated tensions by searching for internal and external enemies the fight would
mean the destruction of not only traditional values and we cherish these values in russia such as
family but also fundamental freedoms including the right of choice and privacy i would like to know that social crisis
and the crisis of values have already caused negative demographic consequences
as a result the humankind risks losing the entire civilizations and cultures our common responsibility today
is to avoid such a future that resembles a grim dystopic dystopia we need to
ensure development following a different path one that is positive balanced and constructive and in this regard i would
like to elaborate on the key challenges that in my opinion are facing the world
community today the first of them the first one of them is of the social
and economic nature well that’s true we took if we look at the statistics
despite the severe crisis of 2008 and 2020
the past 40 years one can call extremely successful for
the global economy starting from 1980 the global gdp
had purchasing power parity in real terms per capita has doubled
and it’s a positive sign globalization and domestic growth have resulted in a boost in developing countries
more than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty
for instance if we take an income level of 5.5 u.s dollars per person per
day at purchasing power parity according to the world bank the number
of people with lower income in china has reduced from 1.1 billion
in 1990 to less than 300 million
in recent years and it’s a success for china in russia this number has been decreased from
almost 64 million people in 1999 to about five million people as of now
and we think that uh we are moving in the right direction
and it’s the most important area but the main question the answer to which gives much insight
into the current problems is what was the nature of this global growth who benefited most from it
undoubtedly as i’ve already said developing countries gained much benefit from it
using the growing demand for their traditional and even new products
but however this embedding in the global economy resulted not only in new jobs and expert
earnings for them but also in social costs including significant income gap of the population
and what is the situation in the developed countries whose level of average well-being is much higher
paradoxically the problems of stratification here in
developed countries have proven to be even more profound according to the world bank estimates
while there were 3.6 million people living on less than 5.5 u.s dollars
a day in the u.s in the year 2000 in 2016 this figure rose
during the same period globalization resulted in a substantial increase in the profits
of the large multinational companies primarily american and european ones
and the as to the number of rest of these people in european countries develop
european countries the tendency tendency is the same like in america but again who gets this revenues talking about
about companies the answer is obvious those who represent one percent of the
population and what has happened with the other people
the income of more than half of the citizens of a number of developed countries in real terms has not increased
while the cost of education and health services has tripled has increased
and has tripled actually that has millions of people even in rich
countries have ceased to see the prospect of increasing their income at the same time they face the
problems of how to preserve their own health and that of their parents how to provide
quality education for their children children there is also a large proportion of people who in fact
turn out to be non-demanded thus according to the international labor organization
estimates in 2019 21 of young people in the world or
267 million uh we’re neither studying or working and
even among those who have work work and it’s an interesting figure even among those who work
30 percent leave on less than 3.2 us dollars a day at purchasing power
parity such imbalances in uh global social and economic development
are the direct results of the targeted policy that has been conducted since the 80s of the last century often
blatantly and dogmatically based on this so-called
washington consensus with its unwritten rules that give priority to private
debt-driven economic growth with deregulation and loud
low taxes on the bridge and the reach and corporations as i’ve already mentioned the
coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the problems last year
they declined the global economy was the worst since the second world war uh labor
market losses by july were equivalent to almost 500
million jobs yes half of them have been recovered by the end of the
year but still almost 250 million jobs lost
is a very large and boring worrying figure in the first nine months of last year
alone global labor income losses totaled three and a half and a half three three and a
half trillion dollars in the world and this figure is still rising which
means social tensions are on the rise as well at the same time post-crisis recovery
is not an easy task if 20 or 30 years ago the problem could have been resolved
through stimulative stimulative macroeconomic policies that’s what we have done and we still
they’re still doing it so today such mechanisms are no longer working fact
the result is practically exhausted and it’s not my just my uh st
evaluation thus according to the imf estimates the level of aggregate public and
private sector debts is close to 200 of global gdp and in some economies
it has exceeded 300 percent of national gdp at the same time all developed countries
now have zero interest rates
and the main develop developing countries historically historical minimum ones all this leads
to practically practical impossibility of stimulating the economy with traditional tools by
increasing private credit quantitative easing the so-called quantitative easing which
only increases inflates the financial asset bubble leads to further stratification in the
society and the increasing gap between real and virtual economy
and quite often representatives of real economy
sector from many countries keep telling me this and i think that business representative today will uh
tell me tell me the same so
and the increased gap between rail and rational economy as i said represents a real threat and it is fraught with serious and
unpredictable disturbances certain hopes for resetting the previous growth model
are related to rapid technological development yes the last 20 years have laid the foundation for what is
known as the fourth industrial revolution which is based on the widespread use of artificial intelligence automated
and robotic solutions the coronavirus pandemic has greatly
accelerated such developments and their implementation however this process is also bringing is also
bringing about new structural changes in the labor market therefore without efficient efforts by
states many people are risking
their jobs and this often affects the so-called middle class which continues constitutes the core
of any modern society and let me turn to the second fundamental challenge for the forthcoming decade uh in other
words the social and political challenge increasing economic problems and
inequality are splitting the society they pave the way for social racial
national intolerance and this pressure shows through even in those countries
which seem to possess well-established civic and democratic institutions that are designed to smooth over
mitigate such events and incidents systemic social economic problems
leads to public discontent and it requires special attention
uh they should be these problems should be resolved there are dangerous illusions that we
can adjust don’t deal with it bury them deep
but in this case the public discontent uh will increase and the society will be
divided because the reasons of public discontent has to do with real problems
which affects everybody uh independently uh what political beliefs or
what political ideas there stick to real problems they lead to discontent i would point
out one more important aspect modern technology model technological uh first of all
digital giants have been playing an increasingly significant role in the life of the society
well we talked a lot about that uh taking into account what had happened in
the united states and we’re not talking about economic giants uh only in certain areas
they are compete they are competing with states and their audience include millions millions and
millions of users which using these ecosystems
they’re using ecosystems and they spend a lot of time there and the company’s monopoly position
as they can see it is best suited for running technological and business processes probably it’s
true but here is the question how well does this monopolism correlate with the public interest
where is the distinction between successful global businesses
sought after services and big data consolidation on the one hand and the efforts to rule
the society in the rude and self-servicing manner by
substituting for legitimate democratic institutions by encroaching on or restricting the
natural right of people to decide for themselves how to live and what to choose and what
you to express freely on the other hand we have seen all of this just recently in the united states
and everybody understands quite well what i’m talking about and i’m sure that the majority of people share this view
including those who are participating today at this meeting and finally the third
challenge or to be more precise the clear threat which we can face in this decade
i mean the further aggravation of the whole set of international problems
if states especially major states choose to search for internal enemies they will inevitably
need an external external enemy the one which they can blame for each and every
failure and the one to which they can redirect the temper and discontent of
their own citizens and we see it we can see it already we feel the tension in external
policy or with their friends grow we may expect practical steps to become more aggressive this might include
further pressure on countries that do not agree to become docile easy to control satellites
the use of trade barriers illegitimate sanctions restrictions restrictions in the
financial technological and information spheres such a game without rules
is dramatically increasing the risks of the universal use of military force
which is very dangerous under the under any pretexts invented pretests
as well as the odds of the emergence of new hot spots on our planets
that’s cannot but cause the preoccupation for creation among us
dear participants and dear participants despite this angle of differences and challenges
it is essential that we keep looking positively into the future and remain committed to
the constructive agenda it would be naive to offer some universal magic
solutions for the sad problems but all of us should certainly work to
develop common approaches narrow down discrepancies as much as
possible didn’t identify social global tensions i would like to reiterate my message the
fundamental reason behind the lack of sustainability in global development
is in many cases the accumulated social and economic problems that’s why the key issue for us today is
this what logic should we follow in our actions so as not only to quickly restore global and
national economies affected by the pandemic but to ensure that
the such restoration is sustainable in the long term and has a quality
structure enabling it to help overcome the burden
of social imbalances it is clear that given the above mentioned uh limitations
of the past macroeconomic policies further development of the economy will be based to a great extent on
fiscal stimulus which state budgets with state budgets and central banks
playing the key role in fact we are already witnessing such
tendencies in the developed and countries as well as as well as in certain developing
countries the increase the increasing role of the government in the social socioeconomic sphere
at the national level and not and obviously in matters of the global agenda requires
greater responsibility and closer interstate cooperation various international fora
have invariably been calling for inclusive growth for creating conditions to ensure a decent life for everyone
it is absolutely clear and that’s correct and it’s absolutely clear that
that the world cannot follow the path of building an economy uh that works for a million
people or even for the golden billion it’s a destructive type of policy such a
model is unsustainable by definition and recent developments including the migration crisis uh have once again
proved that today it is important to move from general statements to actions to putting real efforts and
resources to both reducing social inequality within individual states
and step by step to narrow the gap between the levels of economic development of
different countries and regions of the planet thus we will avoid immigration migration risks
designed to ensure sustainable harmonious development this policy has clear
purposes and priorities those include the creation of new opportunities for everybody
conditions for people to develop and realize their potential regardless of where they were born and
live and where they live um there there are four key priorities
how of how i can see them as the priorities
probably i will not be i will not say nothing new but uh i’m
expressing the power of the position the position of russia that’s what i’m doing first a person
should have a comfortable environment to live in which includes housing and accessible infrastructure transport energy and
utilities and of course ecological well-being we should keep this in mind always second a person must be confident
that he or she will have a job that provides a steadily increasing income and
therefore an adequate standard of living people should have access to effective
mechanisms for lifelong learning which is just necessary today
allowing them to keep to develop and build their career and receive a decent pension and social
package after retiring third a person must be confident
that he or she will receive high quality and effective medical care when needed
that the healthcare system in any event will guarantee them access to most uh advanced services
fourth regardless of family income children should have opportunities to
receive a decent education and fulfill their potential and this kind of potential every kid has
this is only the only way to guarantee the most effective development of a modern economy an
economy that does not view people as a mean as means as a mean but places
them at the center only those countries that can make progress in those in these four areas and
um i just mentioned uh the most important areas uh so only
those countries that can make progress here will ensure sustainable inclusive development
and it is these approaches that underlie the strategy that russia is pursuing my country is pursuing our
priorities focus on the individual and the family they center on ensuring demographic development and
safeguarding the people on improving the well-being and protecting the health of our people
we work to create conditions for decent and efficient work and successful entrepreneurship to
ensure digital transformation as a basis for a technology driven future for our
entire country rather than a small group of companies in the coming years we will concentrate
the efforts of the government business and civil society on these tasks and building a stimulating budget policy
in achieving our national development goals we’re open to a broad international
cooperation and we believe that cooperation matters on the global social and economic agenda
would have a positive impact on the general atmosphere and the world affairs and
interdependence in solving urgent problems would lead to us to stronger mutual trust
which is especially irrelevant today it is clear that an
era associated with attempts to build a centralized unipolar world order is over
it hasn’t been started even there were attempts to do this in just there
but it’s over such a monopoly was inherently contrary to the cultural
and historical diversity of our civilization
the the reality is that there are truly different studies of development in the
world with their own distinctive models political systems political models social institutions and
today it is extremely important to create mechanisms for coordinating their interests so
so that the diversity and which is natural and the natural
competition between the poles of development does not turn into anarchy and multiple
protracted conflicts and we for this we have to strengthen and
develop the universal institutions which bear special responsibility for ensuring global stability and security and
uh elaboration of rules of conduct in the world economy and trade i’ve mentioned many times that many universal
institutions are facing facing hard times today and at different summits i keep telling you
about that these institutions have been created in uh during different
uh era and they’re facing today’s challenges it’s not an easy task for them
objectively but i’d like to to stress that
we just we shall support them
they have unique uh experience when it comes to uh using a huge
potential which have not have has not been implemented it should be adapted to the realities
but we should use it we shall not make history of them we should use the
new uh forms of interaction when it comes to
certainly it can also be understood in different ways it can be seen as a way of promoting one’s own interests
and making one’s unilateral actions look legitimate while others are left with no other
choice but to not in approval or it can be an opportunity for sovereign states
to actually join their efforts to deal with specific problems for the common good in particular this
may involve the settlement of regional conflicts and creation of
technological alliances as well as many other areas including the formation of
cross-border transport and energy corridors etc
dear friends ladies and gentlemen you you understand that we have here vast opportunities
for mutual work uh such multilateral approaches actually work
and the practice the practical work shows that let me remind you that a lot
has been done by russia iran and turkey within the astana format to stabilize the situation in syria and
they are currently contributing to the establishment of a political dialogue in that country we are doing this with other countries
we are doing it together and russia engaged in active mediation efforts to
put an end to the armed conflict in the nagorni karabakh region a conflict between the nations that are
our old friends and neighbors azerbaijan and armenia these efforts were guided by the key arrangements made
by the osce means group particularly by its co-chair russia the u.s and france it’s another
good uh example of uh cooperation as it is known a trilateral
statement was signed by russia azerbaijan and armenia in november more importantly most of its provisions
are constantly put into practice there’s this has helped to end the bloodshed which is
the most important thing the ending of the bloodshed we establish a complete ceasefire and we
uh start with the stabilization process right now the task for the international community
and of course of those countries that have been involved in the resolving the crisis is to provide assistance to the affected
regions to help them overcome the humanitarian problems associated with the return of refugees
restoration of the destroyed infrastructure and protection of historical religious and cultural monuments and
their restoration you also know another
example i would like to stress the role played by russia saudi arabia and the
united states in the stabilization of the world energy market this farm it has provided a private
example of a productive interaction between countries with different and sometimes even opposite assessments of global processes
with their own views of the world at the same time there are of course issues that affect all states
without exception a good a good example is the joint work to study and combat the cavite 19
infection recently several types of this dangerous disease have emerged
as it is well known and the world community needs to create an environment that enables scientists
and as specialists to work together in order to understand why and how the chronovirus mutations
occur what is the difference between its strains and of course there is a need for worldwide coordination
of efforts and the uh general secretary you and general secretary calls upon it
we need to coordinate of efforts to distribute and facilitate the accessibility of the much needed covered 19 vaccines
vaccines help should be provided to states that need it the most including african states such
health should involve the increase should involve the increase in the
number of tests and vaccination as we can see a mass vaccination
is accessible mostly today for those who live in the developed countries at the same time there are hundreds of
millions of people uh in our world who cannot even hope to get such protection
and reality such inequality could result in a common thread because the pandemic
and it is well known the pandemic will drag on uh
and uncontrolled epicenters who will remain infection and pandemics
no no no no body that’s why we need to learn the lessons from the current situation
and to come up with measures to make the system for global monitoring of emergence of such diseases
more effective and another important area which requires the entire world
community to coordinate efforts
it has to do with the preservation of climate and nature of our planet
it’s nothing new here only together we can achieve progress uh in addressing such
serious problems as the global warming depletion of forest loss of biodiversity increasing
waste volumes and marine plastic pollution so on so forth find an optimal balance between the
interest of economic development and preservation of the environment for the current and future generations
dear foreign participants dear friends we all know that
competition rivalry between the countries has never in the world’s history stopped and they
will not stop and differences clusters of interests are
all natural for such a complex organism as the today’s of human
civilization in general however however at critical times
it was never an obstacle but rather it prompted a concerted effort in dealing
with the most vital and truly life-changing situations and i believe that now
is exactly such a period it is crucial to give an honest assessment of the
situation to focus on uh real global problems rather than perceived ones on remitting
the imbalances of imbalances which are critical for the entire world community and then i’m sure we will be able to
achieve success to give a solid response for the challenges of the third decade of the 21st century
i’d like to stop here and i’d like to thank for your patience and for your attention
mr president many of the issues erased certainly are part
also of our discussions here during the davos week we complement the
speeches also by task forces which address some of the issues you mentioned like
not leaving the developing world behind taking care of let’s say creating the skills for
tomorrow and so on so mr president i have we we prepare for
the discussion afterwards but i have one very short question um how do you see and i
it’s a question which we discussed when i visited you in saint petersburg
14 months ago how do you see the future of european russian relations
fundamental issues we have common culture
most important political figures in europe in the recent past mentioned
the need to keep developing the relations between europe and russia
stressing the fact that russia is part of europe geographically and what is most
important from the cultural point of view
it’s just one civilization in reality french leaders mentioned the need to uh
create a common space from lisbon to urals and i mentioned
just the same why adjust to your to your euros we shall extend it to vladivostok
me personally i had the position of the former distinguished political uh figure
uh chancellor helmut kaul who uh used to say that if uh the european culture
would like to preserve itself and to maintain its role as one of the cultural
centers in the world again taking into account all the problems and tendencies of the
world civilization development so where western europe and russia should
be together and we cannot but agree with this we share the same position and the same opinion today’s
situation is no doubt far from being normal
we have to come back to the positive agenda
this is the common interest of russia and european countries no doubt about that
well deep pandemic has played its negative role our trade to know
has been affected although uh your european union is one of our main trade partners so we have to come back
to positive tendencies and we have to
increase our interaction russia and europe from economic point of view are the
natural partners and from the point of view of first
science development technological development uh development from the space point of
view uh russia is sharing european culture
but the territory of russia is a little bit bigger than the entire
europe we have a huge human resources um and
i will not enumerate all we have but it could be
used beneficially for russia and europe what is important here is the following we should we should
approach an honest manner to our dialogue we should get rid of our
past phobias we shall not use in our internal political processes
problems which we inherited from the previous centuries
we shall look into the future to the to the future and if we are able to get rid of this
phobias and old problems then
we will create a positive stage of our uh relations we are ready for this we
would like to get this and we will do our best to get to achieve this but it should not be a uniratal approach
it should be a common approach
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