MOSCOW
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday urged the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to strengthen industrial cooperation and create common brands.
During a meeting with CIS heads of government in Sochi, a summer beach resort city on the Black Sea, Putin spoke about the necessity to increase industrial cooperation “more vigorously,” to create new joint productions, including under the common trademarks Made in CIS and Made in EurAsEC (Eurasian Economic Union).
“It is necessary to increase industrial cooperation more vigorously, to create new joint productions, including under the common trademark Made in EurAsEC or Made in CIS. It doesn’t matter – the main thing is that effective cooperation develops in all our countries.
“As I have already said, it is important that such a brand or such brands become recognizable and popular with consumers in all our countries,” he said, according to a transcript of his meeting posted on the Kremlin website.
Putin stressed that no one plans to “shut off from the global economy,” especially its “promising centers of development,” but that in critical areas, “it would be better to be independent because self-sufficiency is the basis of sovereignty.”
He also proposed to add the fifth position, the freedom of knowledge to “four freedoms” of the Eurasian Economic Union — free movement of goods, services, finance and human capital.
“This involves the introduction of common principles and standards of education, the coordination of scientific programs, the unification of requirements for professions, the creation of unified textbooks on technical and other disciplines,” he explained.
Russia, for its part, is committed “to the closest cooperation” with its CIS partners in the implementation of the outlined ambitious plans, he added.
