Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was fruitful marking the beginning of friendship, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in an interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman.

"I am very pleased with the visit," he said. "I was received with wonderful hospitality, that was a very warm welcome. I would say that friendly relations have emerged as well. At the end, before saying good-bye, we told each other about that."

"We spent the whole afternoon together, many hours, discussing multiple issues," the Italian premier went on to say. "Those were issues related to both foreign and domestic policy and bilateral exchanges. That was a very fruitful meeting indeed."

Giuseppe Conte specifically mentioned those areas, in which Italian-Russian cooperation is developing dynamically. "Of course, commercial exchange and economic cooperation are developing very intensively in many areas, for example, infrastructure, energy, agricultural production, processing industry and medicine," he said.

"We should not disregard cultural ties, that’s very important," the prime minister stressed. "I said that there were 50 schools in Russia where Italian was taught at all levels, from elementary to high school. At the same time, Italy pays great attention to the Russian language and Russian culture. From this point of view, these are the key milestones. If we add to that exchanges at the level of universities, at the level of research centers, we can be certain that relations between our countries are very intense.".