OREANDA-NEWS. September 8, 2011.  A foundation meeting of the Russian part of the Russian-Swedish Business Council (the RSBC) was held in Moscow. In attendance of the meeting were representatives of ministries, business associations, Russian corporations and companies representing big, medium and small business. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sent a welcoming message to the foundation meeting’s participants.

A decision to establish a Russian-Swedish Business Council was taken as a result of Russian Prime Minister V.V Putin’s visit to Sweden.

In the course of the meeting Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev was elected as the Russian part’s co-chairman of the Russian-Swedish Business Council. The meeting’s participants also elected deputy chairmen of the RSBC’s Russian part, approved a business plan for the immediate future as well as considered an issue of forming a membership base of the RSBC’s Russian part.

The Russia-Swedish Business Council will help to expand and boost business ties, mutually beneficial cooperation between Russian and Swedish businessmen as well as promote Russian business to Swedish markets and raise Swedish investments for Russia.

The meeting stressed that in their cooperation the parties would give top priority to power engineering, “green economy”, telecommunications, space, nanotechnologies, medicine and education.

The Russian-Swedish Business Council is a nongovernmental public organization. The Council’s activity is to be undertaken on a pro bono basis uniting Russian and Swedish companies and institutions irrespective of ownership type. Vnesheconombank and Ericsson Concern respectively are to be responsible for coordinating activities of the Council’s Russian and Swedish parts and managing its executive bodies.

The Russian part of the Russian-Swedish Business Council was founded in the system of business councils under the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry without forming a legal entity.