OREANDA-NEWS. November 22, 2010. International Forum “Integration of the Russian Business into the Global Economic Space as a Strategy for Increasing Its Competitiveness.”

The International Forum “Integration of the Russian Business into the Global Economic Space as a Strategy for Increasing Its Competitiveness” was held at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.

Its participants included representatives of small- and medium-sized enterprises, large companies, federal, regional and municipal authorities, associations of entrepreneurs, territorial CCIs, regional bodies  supporting entrepreneurship, R&D and educational institutions, investment companies, financial institutions and crediting organizations, venture funds and “business angels”, mass media and international organizations from the United States, Brazil, Croatia, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain.

The event was organized by the REF Ministry of Economic Development, the Russian Agency for the Support of Small- and Medium-Sized Business, the Russian Gate2RuBIN business network with assistance from the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Russia’s National Small and Medium Sized Entrepreneurship NGO “Opora Rossii”, the RF Federal Assembly’s State DUMA and the Moscow Entrepreneurship Association.


The tasks the forum participants intended to look into included search for efficient solutions and working out of recommendations for the state and municipal authorities with an eye at increasing the competitiveness of Russian businesses; working out  proposals for the state and municipal authorities aiming to boost Russian businesses’ competitiveness, devising proposals for furthering interaction of SMEs with big business, developing business support infrastructure to boost attraction of investments, introducing innovations to ensure their successful entry onto the global markets, promoting efficient development of the process of Russia’s businesses’ integration into the global economic space. 

The forum was a two-day event whose agenda included section sessions, “a contact exchange” and the ceremony of giving their prizes to the winners of the National Award “Russian Creative People-2010”.

On its first day the forum saw several free exchange of opinion sessions in its four sections, including “Opportunities and Prospects of Developing Business Cooperation between the US and Russian Markets”, “Attracting Investments by Russian and International Markets Players to Boost Business Competitiveness”, “Opportunities and Prospects of Business Cooperation on the EU and Russian Markets.” “The Gate2RuBIN Business Innovation Network, an Official Member of Enterprise Europe Network as a Tool to Support Businesses Entering External Markets”; “Innovations as a Way of Increasing Businesses’ Competitiveness on Global Markets. The Role of Infrastructure Organisations for the Growth of Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses.”

The forum’s “Contacts Exchange of Business Partnerships: “Russia and Europe: Cooperation Without Frontiers” was held at the premises of the RF Government Building in Novy Arbat Street by the Moscow Association of Entrepreneurs.

The event took the form of bilateral negotiations between Russian industrial companies, primarily SMEs involved in actually any field (manufacture, R&D and services) with projects of business cooperation including investment projects and those willing to meet business partners abroad, foreign SMEs showing interest in developing these projects and looking into proposals, and in turn, proposing collaboration with Russian businesses themselves.

The forum’s second day featured the session of the section under the title “Practical Experience of the Activities of the Russian Innovation Business Network Gate2RuBIN: The Tools, Accomplishments and Prospects.” A press conference was then held, after which the forum’s plenary session took place.

The plenary session was chaired by the chairman of the RF CCI Committee for the Development of private entrepreneurship and SMEs, the general director of the Russian Agency for the support of small- and medium-sized businesses Viktor Yermakov.

The RF Federal Assembly’s State Duma deputy, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee’s civil, criminal, arbitration and procedural legislation, chairman of the Association of Young Entrepreneurs Vladimr Gruzdev read out the welcome address of the chairman of the RF State Duma Boris Gryzlov to the forum participants. 

The RF CCI vice president Sergei Katyrin then made a speech at the forum.

“The positions we hold on the global commodities and services markets in Russia’s priority development directions are not yet very strong,” he noted.  “These directions include the aviation construction, rocket and space industry, ship building, IT, nuclear energy sector, medical equipment and the pharmaceuticals industry.” 

“According to preliminary assessments, Russia’s export of high-tech commodities amounted to about USD 7.8 billion in 2009, or about 2.6% in Russia’s commodities exports structure. Our exports of medicine and pharmaceuticals products amounted to about USD 100 million, USD 600 million worth of the products of our ship-building industry, and about USD 1.3 billion worth of space technology and IT services.”

“As for its exports of high-tech commodities and services Russia occupies comes middle on the list of other countries. Our global high-tech exports share is about 0.43%, with no less than one-third of it being represented by products of military purposes.

Russia’s small share on the global exports market is typical of the entire Russian exports list, with 2.31% represented by commodities, and 1.25% in the services sector. This evidences the need for a very serious and all-round support of domestic manufacturers, primarily that of SMEs. Until recently supporting their exports activities was not a priority.

“At present,” Sergei Katyrin continued, “the situation continuous to change for the better, given the boost of infrastructure of support of export-oriented SMEs. Acutally, 40 RF regions have opened their EuroInfo Correspondent Centres, offering information and consulting support to the companies willing to find a partner abroad.”

Nevertheless, experts say, due to a number of different factors, the overwhelming number of Russian SMEs is not yet prepared for an active entry and activities on external markets.

Sergei Katyrin then spoke about the measures that could be helpful for the support of businesses. In particular these include an increase of the role of the state in subsidizing SMEs’ exports expenses, changing the procedures of subsidizing of their participations at exhibitions and fairs abroad (following the payments for organization of their participation in such events, but not after their closures), insuring exports risks of SMEs, providing guarantees of financing foreign trade operations of SMEs, providing tax preferences to startup exporting businesses, information, consultation and education support as well as assisting them in the field of the intellectual property law, patenting and protection of intellectual property abroad, where RF CCI bodies can be helpful, lowering administrative barriers in the taxation sphere, etc. At the same time” Sergei Katyrin stressed,” monitoring of activities of the SMEs that get support from the state should be installed and maintained on a regular basis. This is necessary,” he said in conclusion, ”to be able to evaluate the efficiency of such support and the degree of development of a particular business type.”

Andrei Sharov, the RF Ministry of Economic Development department director spoke about the issue of the state support of SMEs. He said that the principal infrastructure for it had been installed. At present there’s a new stage. It is not sufficient to be simply registered as a small company. What is important is to try to be innovative and export-oriented, thus assisting modernization of the Russian economy.

Andrei Sharov then cited some statistics. 2 billion roubles had been earmarked to subsidize credit rate expense of small-sized businesses, which is equal to giving them preferential credits to the tune of 20 billion roubles. Exports agencies are being established in Russia’s 38 regions whose task is to assist businesses to enter external markets for free. These agencies are to act in close contact with Russian trade missions abroad. The EuroInfo centres that are being opened in the regions will also render assistance to the businesses with the participation of the territorial CCIs. These centres can provide a free access to the special information network of 50 countries to Russian companies, which can use it to advertise their achievements, finding partners and so forth. The financial resources for the state support, exports agencies, the EuroInfoCentres network and services of Russia’s trade missions abroad are the four directions that are expected to help change the structure of activities of our small businesses that to a large degree are still engaged in the sphere of trade.

John MacCaslin, Envoy Adviser, US Trade Mission in the Russian Federation the spoke about the American system of support of small business and opportunities for the Russian businesses to establish contacts and to operate on both countries’ markets.

Deputy chairman of the state corporation “Bank for the Development and Foreign Trade Activities” (VEB), and chairman of the monitoring committee of the council “RosBR” Mikhail Kopeikin spoke on the intensive development of the programmes of the financial and crediting support of SMEs, stressing the positive dynamics in this sphere. In 2006 it amounted to 9 billion roubles whereas by the end of 2010 it is expected to grow to 100 billion roubles. He said his organization intended to work closely with the RF government and the Ministry of Economic Development, planning to raise it to 250 billion roubles.

Nadia Cherkesova of “Trust” bank spoke on her company’s work with small businesses, noted that according to public opinion polls notorious administrative barriers are only the 6th obstacle in a row, whereas the first two slots were lack of startup capital and the absence of sufficient specific market information. But given that the lack of startup capital can in part be compensated for by getting loans, market information was either there or nowhere, the second factor being the most frequent one. So this second direction should be more actively engaged in to assist business.

Aleksandr Larchikov of Russia’s ITC consortium Gate 2RuBIN told the audience about activities aimed to create in Russia information centres for businesses. What they aim to is to ensure cooperation in the sphere of technology, collaboration of businesses and so forth.

Viktor Sedov, executive director of the US Entrepreneurship Centre noted that, unfortunately, in terms of the climate for doing business, Russia takes only the second spot on the list of two hundred of other countries, his organisation’s goal was to teach Russians how to be entrepreneurial with the ultimate goal of helping gifted young university students to take on business, the way it is done in the West, in particular in the USA. 

This is the direction that the activities of the programme “You Are am Entrepreneur” under the Federal Youth Problems Agency were heading, said its head Elena Bocherova.

In their speeches many entrepreneurs spoke about concrete problems of innovation and export-oriented entrepreneurship with an eye at practice-proven ways of solving them.

The agreement on cooperation between the state corporation “Bank for the Development and Foreign Trade Activities“ Vnesheconombank and the Russian Agency for the Support of SMEs.” Within its framework a ceremony of prize-giving to the winners of the Russian National Award “Russia’s Creative Workers -2010” was also held.