Over a thousand participants gathered at the event, which was noted by Alexei Mordashov, as “the only event of its kind and this scale, which is held in the West and is devoted to Russian issues.”

All participants of the Forum, including leading politicians, economists, analysts and businessmen from Great Britain and Russia will discuss ways of developing the Russian economy and its integrating into the world economy. A number of discussion sections on various aspects of the condition and perspectives of developing the Russian economy will be arranged.

Alexei Mordashov will meet with the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) at the Forum. Main objective of taking part in this event is to create a joint work group of the CBI and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, which will continue efforts of Russian business to join the WTO.

“This workgroup will enable Russian and British businessmen to have a dialogue and to discuss directly the conditions of Russia’s entry into the WTO and the course of negotiations. In this process our main goal will be to search for compromising solutions on various points of disagreement for parties in the negotiations. This dialogue will allow to advance in the negotiations on Russia’s entry into the WTO, which is important to both Russia and foreign entrepreneurs”, said Mordashov.

A separate discussion section is titled “Russian Financial Institutions: Problems of Rebuilding Public Confidence”. Additionally, Andrei Nikitchenko, President of the Regional Private Pension Fund Sheksna-Gefest will give a report on the pension reform, the experience of Sheksna-Gefest so far, and opportunities of using the experience of the European pension funds in Russia.

02 April 2003