I mentioned Iraq several times. We know what is going on there. The United States supports Iraq, supports, arms and trains the Iraqi army. In two or three attacks, the Islamic State captured so many weapons, more than the Iraqi army probably even has. This includes armored vehicles and missiles, though the general public is poorly informed about all of this. This was all just recently. The Islamic State is now better armed than the Iraqi army. And this has all happened with the United States' support.
The United States supposedly withdrew from Iraq, but our special services and the information we receive from Iraq itself indicate that thousands of US service personnel are still in Iraq. The results are deplorable and tragic.
We do not want all of this to repeat itself in Syria. We call on our partners in the United States and Europe, but above all in the United States, of course, to make greater efforts to fight this absolute evil that is fundamentalism, the Islamic State and similar groups that essentially all have their roots in the well-known global terrorist organisations that have already launched repeated attacks against the United States itself. Our call is for political settlement, which should, of course, guarantee the regime's transformation, and we are ready to discuss this matter with President Assad too.
The UN just recently declared the importance of working together with President Assad to fight the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. We are ready to work with the [Syrian] President to ensure that the political transformation process can go ahead so that all people in Syria feel that they have access to the instruments of power, and in order to put an end to this armed confrontation. But we cannot achieve this from outside and through the use of force. This is the real issue.
Charlie Rose: All right, but are you ready to call on President Assad to step down if this would make an alternative political solution possible or would help to fight the Islamic State, say?
Vladimir Putin: Our moderator is a real American. I said, "without outside intervention," and he asks me if we are "to call on President Assad to step down?" Only the Syrian people can do this. How can we ignore such basic things as this? As I just said, we are ready to engage in dialogue with President Assad about carrying out political reforms together with the healthy opposition forces. I think this is constructive and realistic.
Charlie Rose: Mr President, let's come back to the economy. I have many questions. Here, we have Ronny Chichung Chan of Hang Lung Properties investment company, Mahmood Hashim Al-Kooheji, general director of Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company, and also president of YPF Argentina, Miguel Galuccio, with whom we will talk about energy. We all heard a lot about China here today. What opportunities do you see for building more profitable cooperation between China and Russia?
President of Investment Company Hang Lung Properties Ronny Chan: As the President [Vladimir Putin] said, I think the economy is the key area for cooperation between China and Russia. As a businessman, I think that Russia and China are a match made in heaven. Russia is rich in natural resources, whereas China lacks natural resources but is growing fast. China has capital for buying natural resources. From an economic point of view, it would be hard to find two countries that complement each other better.
The only remark I want to make is that I am sure that President Putin has a strategic vision for Russia's relations with China, but Mr President, I am not so sure about your business community. I am not so sure that your businesspeople are ready to make use of the advantages the Chinese market offers. Just take a look around. How many Chinese are there here in the audience? I feel quite alone here on the stage. How many Russians are there in China? I don't even know. Talking to my Russian friends about all of this over the last couple of days, I came to the conclusion that people here still see Asia as a place they would like to get hold of, but they are not ready to go and commit themselves economically there.
President Putin said just now that China is one of the world's big economic powers today. Mr President, I would like the business leaders present here today to show more readiness to engage in practical work with us. You mentioned financing, for example, which is essential for many Russian projects. Many companies are registered in Hong Kong, because the Hong Kong market is linked to the Shanghai market, and will soon be linked to the Shenzhen market too. The Shanghai stock exchange is the fifth-biggest in the world, the Hong Kong exchange is in sixth place, and Shenzhen is number eight. If we combine these three exchanges, we get the second biggest securities market in the world. Why not have Russian companies register in Hong Kong? This would help them in their work with China. I think this would be an excellent opportunity, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: I agree with my colleague that we need to give Russian-Chinese economic relations concrete substance and projects. I think too that we need to do this not just in big business, but also develop ties at the level of small and medium-sized businesses, so as to weave a natural and living fabric for working together in all different production sectors.
In terms of individual countries, though, China is our number one trading partner. Our bilateral trade comes to $85 billion. Yesterday, I spoke about this with the First Vice Premier [Zhang Gaoli], and I discuss it regularly with President Xi Jinping. I think that over the coming years, we could take our trade to a figure of $200 billion.
All of what you said just now is absolutely correct. We must proceed without haste, of course, take things carefully and ensure all the necessary conditions. This goes for both us and our Chinese partners. I said in my opening remarks that we do not place any restrictions on free movement of capital. Even during the difficult crisis of 2008 and 2009, and last year too, we did not restrict capital exports in any way. But we hope that our partners will offer the same conditions. The yuan is becoming an increasingly stronger regional currency. We all see that this is happening. But experts know that there is not enough free movement of capital. If steps in this direction go ahead, this will be major progress towards liberalizing our relations.
We understand very well that our Chinese partners also have to take a cautious approach, and they are the better judges of what measures they should take. The decision to carry out payments for our trade operations in our national currencies -- the yuan and the ruble -- is already a big step towards deepening and expanding our relations. The first yuan-ruble trading took place just recently, and we are sure that this will continue and develop, and will create new opportunities for work in the real sector of the economy.
Overall, I agree with you. We need to keep moving in this direction and we shouldn't focus just on agreements at the government level and just on decisions made by the sovereign funds and so on. Of course, this is all important, too, and creates a platform for broader format work. We are working on this and we will continue in this direction.
Thank you.
Charlie Rose: Thank you. Next, we have Mr Mahmood Hashim Al-Kooheji, the general director of Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company. What investment opportunities do you believe exist in Russia, and what questions do you have?
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