“The current global economic crisis shows the need for the renunciation of standard approaches and requires collective nontrivial decisions making. The participants of the forum will discuss new approaches to interpretation of the future of international financial institutions, prospects for the development of the banking sector, effectiveness of measures taken by governments and other not less significant issues. Special attention will be given to Russia’s role in solution of these questions,” says the message posted on the PIEF official website.
Russia is represented at the forum by: the RF President Dmitry Medvedev, Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Naryshkin, President’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov, First Vice-Premier of the Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, RF Prime Ministers Alexander Zhukov, Sergey Ivanov, Dmitry Kozak, Igor Sechin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Aleksey Kudrin, RF presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich, Head of MEDT of Russia Elvira Nabiullina, RF Minister of Transport Igor Levitin, RF Minister of Energy Sergey Shmatko, RF Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov, RF Minister of Regional Development Victor Basargin, RF Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko, Federal Customs Service Chief Andrei Belianinov, Head of the Federal Financial Markets Service Vladimir Milovidov, as well as heads of 56 regions of the Russian Federation.
On the first day of the forum work the following events took place: Russia–the Arab world business dialogue: “Dialogue between business and government in conditions of global crisis”, Russia-EU business dialogue: “Russian-European cooperation: to protect investment, without recourse to protectionist solutions”, Russia–the USA business dialogue: “Economic cooperation as a base of “reload” in the relationship between Russia and the USA.”
A speech by the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev took place on the second day of the PIEF work. His report “Global economic crises: the first lessons and a vision of the future” according to the organizers, must set the tone to all the forum discussions.
As reported by the official website of the President of Russia, the Head of state underlined in his speech that the world financial crisis must not discredit the inherent worth of freedom, as well as democratic, cultural and economic values.
According to the Head of Russia, the crisis’ basic reasons were the pegged unipolarity and the maintenance of monopolies in the key segments of the world economy.
The responsibility for the global economy recovery, stability, and less openness to global risks rests on today’s decision-makers, said the President. D.Medvedev noted the readiness of different states governments to increasingly act in concert when solving global financial problems; he also made a point of the creation of institutes allowing to conduct an open dialogue for the elaboration of mutually beneficial decisions with due consideration of all the participants’ interests. The President mentioned among them the Financial Stability Council including 20 leading world economies.
D.Medvedev noted that it is only possible to get oneself out of the crisis by joint efforts, and stressed the need for intensive exchange of information and coordination of actions to successfully solve problems.
One of the themes of the present St. Petersburg International Economic Forum will become the cooperation in struggle of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states against the crisis.
The conference “SCO is a space of economic cooperation and counteraction to the global crisis” will take place on June 5, in the evening. A plenary meeting of the conference is expected to be held under the chairmanship of the Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Naryshkin.
This event agenda includes the following items: regional cooperation as a factor for stable economic growth, development trends of the SCO countries investment cooperation, financial and insurance mechanisms’ role in the socio-economic development in the SCO space and their significance in the implementation of the Program of multilateral trade and economic cooperation.
Among speakers and participants of the discussion are the SCO countries ministers, representatives of the biggest banks, financial and insurance corporations, leading experts and members of the business community.
According to expectations, SCO Secretary-General Bolat Nurgalijev, Special Representative of the President of Russia for the SCO affairs Leonid Moiseev, Head of the SCO Business Council, the former Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council, and since recently - Governor of Irkutskaya oblast Dmitry Mezentsev and Chairman of the Board of SCO IBA Vladimir Dmitriev will speak at the conference.
The day before, on June 4, Vnesheconombank in the capacity of a Bank- Chairman of the Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Interbank Association (SCO IBA) hold in St. Petersburg a meeting of coordinators.