OREANDA-NEWS. An expanded meeting of the CCI of Russia Committee on Economic Integration of SCO and CIS Countries was held on the sidelines of the 13th International Business Forum in Rostov-on-Don on the theme “The Current Status and Prospects of Inter-Regional Cooperation between Russia and Ukraine.”

CCI of Russia President Sergey Katyrin and CCI of Ukraine President Gennadiy Chyzhykov attended the Committee meeting.

Committee Chairman Vladimir Salamatov made the opening remarks and chaired the meeting.

CCI of Russia President Sergey Katyrin addressed the audience. Business relations between the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Russia and Ukraine are a long-standing partnership, he noted. The two Chambers signed the cooperation agreement back in 1996. Over the past few years the Chambers have held big joint events dedicated to topical areas of Russia-Ukraine trade and economic cooperation and broader business contacts and cooperation between regions of the two countries (The Kyiv Economic Forum “Ukraine-Russia: Cooperation in Innovations and Investment” in October 2008; the Kazan International Forum “Development of the CIS Innovations Space. The Role and Place of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Member Countries” in April 2009, and the Donetsk Economic Forum, “The Business Chamber - the Government: Relations of Partnership” in April 2010).

Sergey Katyrin suggested that further joint efforts should proceed from the premise that no matter what decision the Ukrainian administration made about the national development vector, Russia-Ukraine relations should actively develop and the chambers of both countries should play a significant role in that process.

Russian and Ukrainian regions have a genuine interest in spurring the exchange of business information, holding exhibitions and fairs, selling products and exchanging capitals both on the territory of Russia and Ukraine. The chambers should support and supplement these initiatives. Therefore, the sides should probably initiate annual inter-regional (transboundary) economic forums to be hosted by Russian and Ukrainian regions by turn.

The CCI of Russia is ready to use its exhibition and convention capacities. Exhibitions and conventions enjoy rather broad support (Ukraine ranks third by the number of CCI trade and economic missions to CIS member countries. More than 1,200 Ukrainian exhibitors annually participate in over 250 Russian exhibitions. For instance, 36 companies from eight Ukrainian regions participated in the shows organized by the Belexpocenter exhibition and convention center of the Belgorod CCI last year).

These days legislation is changing rapidly, Sergey Katyrin stated. Russia adopted dozens of normative acts in 2013 to regulate foreign economic operations amongst other issues. Lawmaking processes are equally active in Ukraine. But both Ukrainians and we mostly learn about legislative amendments in the countries of their colleagues from the media. So, Sergey Katyrin proposed to organize an exchange of information between the chambers and to give businessmen an opportunity of objective assessment of the market situation.

The debate participants noted mixed trends in the latest development of Russian-Ukrainian economic relations. The trade turnover between Russia and Ukraine grew 36.1% in 2011 and started to decline in 2012. A reason is the Ukrainian wish to reduce the risks for its economy through lesser dependence on Russian natural gas. As a result, the share of processing industries has grown in the structure of Russian exports and the exports of chemical products, machines, equipment and vehicles have enlarged. As of January-July 2013, chemical products, machines, equipment, vehicles, metals and metal products amounted to 37.1% of Russian exports to Ukraine.

The meeting analyzed various aspects of the economic cooperation between regions of the two countries and Russia and Ukraine as a whole, in particular, in the context of the possible creation of a Ukraine-EU free trade zone, which would obviously make adjustments to the bilateral economic contacts. The sides had an interested and useful exchange of opinions about issues of mutual interest.