Berlin hosted today the 25th meeting of the European Business Congress (EBC) Presiding Committee. The meeting was moderated by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee.

The members of the EBC Presiding Committee and the invited experts heard the reports by the Working Committees' Chairmen and discussed a wide range of issues on the global energy industry development.

The Presiding Committee approved the EBC budget for 2012. It was defined that the General Meeting would take place between May 31 and June 1, 2012 in Portoroz, Slovenia. The Meeting will be themed “Energy Security and New Opportunities for Natural Gas”.

In 2011 MND, DONG Energy, Sakhalin Energy, MAN Ferrostaal, Open Technologies and Stroygazmontazh joined the EBC.

“In spite of the financial crisis deepening in Europe and the negative trend in the gross domestic product of some European countries, Gazprom' supplies to non-CIS countries have grown almost 11 per cent and will make 151.5 billion cubic meters by the end of 2011. Therefore, a key theme of the next EBC General Meeting is very acute. All our new projects aimed to increase transmission capacities are in demand. In this regard, we welcome the decision of Bulgaria to assign South Stream the status of a national project. This will allow to implement the Bulgarian part of the project in strict accordance with the construction schedule and to make South Stream operational by the end of 2015,” said Alexey Miller.

Background

The European Business Congress (EBC) is an international, non-governmental and non-profit organization. EBC comprises 126 companies, banks and associations from 24 OSCE member states including such prominent corporations and banks as Gazprom, ExxonMobil, Daimler, Siemens, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Total, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, J. P. Morgan Bank International, Alcatel, Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, GDF SUEZ, Eni, Enel, BNP Paribas, UBS, Royal Boskalis Westminster, The Royal Bank of Scotland, KPMG, Societe Generale, Statoil, MND, MAN Ferrostaal, DONG Energy, Sakhalin Energy, Renaissance Capital and others.

EBC's supreme body is the General Meeting. The 45-member Presiding Committee exercises general management. The EBC President is Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee. The 9-member Board of Executive Directors is responsible for executive management.

EBC deals with economic cooperation issues in Europe and brings forward proposals for debottlenecking and building a safe and favorable environment for entrepreneurial activities. EBC operates through seven Working Committees for: Energy; Industry and Construction; Law, Banking and Finance; Information and Communications; Ecology and Healthcare; Human Resources, Education and Science; Business Security.

In 2011, EBC has expanded its support for the regional and local joint social projects. At present, there are 11 social projects being reviewed by EBC.