OREANDA-NEWS. October 20, 2010. The constituent session of the Business Council for cooperation with Hungary was held at the RF CCI Library. Russian businessmen, officials of the RF Foreign Ministry, the Ministry for Economic Development and Ministry of Trade, as well as representatives of the relevant RF CCI departments attended the session.

RF CCI vice president Georgi Petrov chaired the session. In his speech he stressed Hungary’s role as of Russia’s major European partner. He stressed there were potentialities for further development of bilateral relations, in particular in the investment area.

Georgi Petrov assessed highly the fact of the presence at the session of representatives of the Russian business community including people from different Russia’s regions, which he viewed as the evidence of the growing demand for the business council’s services and a manifestation of the interest on the part of Russian businessmen in working on the Hungarian direction.

Georgi Petrov called the proposal of the list of prospective bilateral projects as a priority goal of the Business Council, as well as the creation of a wide membership base, including getting regional SMEs that are interested in this cooperation, involved in this.

The next speakers included Dmitry Iordanidi, an adviser of the Third European Department of the RF Foreign Ministry, Nikolai Belov, deputy sector head of the European Department of the RF Ministry of Economic Development, and Timur Kirpach, the head of the Foreign Economic Relations Department of the RF Ministry of Industry and Trade. They assessed the current state and prospects of development of the entire complex of the Russia-Hungarian relations and unanimously supported the idea of establishing the Business Council.

In their presentations former RF Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (up to 2009) Igor Savolsky and RF Trade Representative in Hungary Aleksandr Prokhorenko informed the session about specificity of doing business with Hungarian partners. They also expressed their hopes that the Business Council would contribute to furthering bilateral interaction. 

Vladmir Nekrasov, first vice president of LUKoil was elected the chairman of the Russian-Hungarian Business Council. He gave the participants of the session his view of the priority activity directions of the newly established Council

Vladimir Gerasimov, the head of the sector for the work with the regions at the LUKoil PR Department, and Tatiana Legchilina, deputy director of the RF CCI Department of international cooperation were elected deputy chairpersons of the Business Council.

Vitalia Tzarik, expert of the operations with the regions sector at LUKoil’s PR Department, was given the job of the Executive Director of the Business Council. (Tel.:+7(495) 627-44-86, Fax:+7(495)973-76-90, e-mail: vitaliya.tsarik@lukoil.com).

A detailed resolution was adopted on the results of the session’s work.