MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. The program of the forthcoming Year of the Russian and Chinese Mass Media will include more than 100 events, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday in an interview with Renmin Ribao ahead of his visit to China.
"We are finishing preparations of a detailed plan of events that includes more than 100 joint projects. They include production of films, series and documentaries, translation and publishing of books, joint book fairs," he said.
The Russian prime minister noted that the two countries had big perspectives of cooperation in the sphere of new-generation media. He said during his visit to China he planned to attend the World Internet Forum in the city of Wuzhen.
According to Medvedev, the opening of the Years of the Russian and Chinese Mass Media (2016-2017) would be timed to coincide with the ceremony of closing the years of youth exchanges between the two countries at the 20th meeting of the Russian and Chinese heads of government in Beijing.
"I am sure we will not be confined to the Russian-Chinese years of the mass media," Medvedev said. "There are a lot of other spheres where we can establish productive dialogues. We will work on that together."
The Russian prime minister recalled that the program of the year of youth exchanges included more than 600 events, including summer schools and camps, meetings between young scientists and businessmen, Olympiades in the Russian and Chinese languages, forums and conferences, concerts and cinema weeks, arts exhibitions, sports competitions, educational exchanges among students and schoolchildren. "The concert of the joint Russian-Chinese youth orchestra conducted by world-acclaimed Russian conductor Valery Gergiev drew a wide response," Medvedev noted.
"Last year, we began to implement a project of annual exchanges of youth delegations of 100 members from Russia and China. Through pooled efforts, we have managed to make contacts in this sphere large-scale and regular," he said. "Of special importance is the fact that young people of our countries jointly celebrated the 70th anniversary of the victory in World War II. I believe this large-scale action has helped to have a fresh look at the problems of the present-day world from the positions of a generation that will soon undertake responsibility for their solution."
Medvedev reminded that the two countries had not recently exchanged reciprocal national years and the years of their languages and tourism. "All of them were a success and helped the peoples of our countries to have a better knowledge of each other’s culture, history, the present-day life and, what is most important, make new friends," the Russian prime minister underscored.