Moscow, November 12. The World Trade Center Moscow and newspaper Vedomosti hosted a conference, “Strategies of Russian business in a WTO-regulated environment.” The conference was held at Moscow’s WTC and covered a host of topics, including the condition of Russian economy after Russia’s accession to the WTO, adaptation of Russia’s regions to a new economic environment, issues related to Russian legislation, state of the Russian automobile industry and some other industries.

The conference was attended by more than 350 guests, and was widely covered by the media because of the presence of a panel of highly placed dignitaries, including:

Academician Evgeny Primakov, President of the Mercury Club;
Sergei Katyrin, President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry;
Gennady Chizhikov, President of Ukraine’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry;
Andrei Slepnev, Trade Minister, Eurasian Economic Commission;
Andrei Klepach, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation;
Sergei Migin, Deputy Head of the Federal Accreditation Service;
Maxim Medvedkov, Director, Trade Negotiations Department, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation;
Vygaudas Ušackas, Ambassador, Head of the European Union’s Delegation in the Russian Federation;
Galym Izbasaruly Orazbekov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan in the Russian Federation;
Mikhail Karyakin, First Deputy General Director of the Export Insurance Agency;
representatives of trade associations and organizations.
Mr. Ashish Shah, acting Deputy Executive Director of ITC, addressed the assembly on behalf of the World Trade Organization and its Director General Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo.

The conference was moderated by Mr. Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of WTC Moscow. He raised thorny issues with the speakers, and actually directed their presentations. Many of those were preceded by polls on various relevant topics run in an interactive mode, and that way it was possible to involve the experts from the audience into the discussion, not only the key speakers.

Summarizing the results of the conference, Mr. Salamatov presented to the attendees an analytical work prepared by a team of authors, including experts of “Russia in the WTO,” the WTC Moscow’s special project. The study was conceived and carried out in close collaboration with manufacturers’ associations, expert boards of ministries, universities, and other bodies and institutions. It’s not a coincidence that the title of the collection, “Strategies of Russian business in a WTO-regulated environment,” is the same as the name of the conference where it was first unveiled, because the event and the presentation of the book are to become a link in a chain of events aiming to raise awareness of Russian business about principles of work and strategies of efficient interaction in a WTO-regulated environment.