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Putin says Moscow waits for Czech president’s visit in autumn

"Our ministries have already started the preparations," Russian President said

BEIJING, May 14. /TASS/. Moscow is waiting for a visit by Czech President Milos Zeman to Russia in November this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

"We know your position on the Russian-Czech relations and largely thanks to you our relations have been maintained at a high level and have been developing in recent years, despite whatever difficulties," Putin said, addressing his Czech counterpart.

Putin said he perceived today’s talk "as part of a preparation for the visit [by Zeman] to Russia in November."

"Our ministries have already started the preparations. The Culture Ministry and the Foreign Ministry are already preparing the exhibition ["Treasures of Prague] in Moscow and we are glad about it. I’m confident that the Russian public, the Russian connoisseurs of art will also be very glad and will get acquainted with this exhibition with pleasure," Putin said.

As the Russian leader said, "in the economic sphere, trade turnover [between Russia and the Czech Republic] is observed to grow by more than 44% at the beginning of this year, despite a decline of the previous years."

"This is a good sign and a good trend, which we need to maintain," the Russian leader said.

The Czech president said he believed that trade turnover was increasing due to an inflow of Russian tourists in the Czech Republic.

"This is due to the gradual recovery of citizens’ incomes, which, unfortunately, declined because of the crisis and now Russian citizens’ real incomes have started to increase and tourist activity is also rising," Putin said.