As a part of the Russian-British Raw Materials Dialogue, a business session was held in Saint-Petersburg Mining University. Executives and specialists from both countries attended the meeting to participate in a discussion mainly relating to future outlook for trade and investment cooperation between our countries.
The business meeting, which took place on 30th of January, was attended by a delegation from the UK’s Department of International Trade, headed by John Lindfield, Director of the Department, as well as by the Principal of the Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko. Representatives of Russian and British mining and oil and gas companies were also among the participants - "Gazprom Neft", OJSC PhosAgro, Russia Smiths Detection, Rotork, and a few others.
The main purpose of the event is to present the latest achievements and developments in the oil and gas sector, mining and metallurgy. As a matter of fact, Russian-British Dialogue is one of the few currently active structures that provides an opportunity to intensify cooperation between business entities of the two countries on a mutually beneficial basis. In the face of sanctions, when foreign policy agenda is a real obstacle to team working between the industry players, the Dialogue has become a viable platform for cooperation.
According to John Lindfield, "This business session is very important and valuable. We are ready to share our experience and introduce our Russian partners to infrastructure solutions in the mining and oil and gas industries. We are also constantly working on development of innovative technologies so as to be able to tackle the most important challenges facing the global industries. London is well-known as a global project funding center. We, in Britain, are constantly investing in the mining industry, regardless of the country in a question, and we plan to further develop this type of partnership".
For his part, Vladimir Litvinenko, the Principal of the Mining University, noted, "The most important challenge that our raw materials sector is facing is to find a partner. The other challenge is the business climate. It comes as no surprise that mining industry is quite important for both Russian and British economies. Russian commodity market is unique, and it has a huge potential. At the same time, the United Kingdom has been actively utilizing its remarkable investment capital. For these reasons, priority issue is the business climate, whereas high taxes, excise duties or specifity of relations between the countries will not scare off the business players".
An idea of creating a Business Council on the basis of Russian-British Raw Materials Dialogue was suggested at the session. It is believed that, by establishing this form of cooperation, professional business community of the two states will get a chance to address proposals aiming at solving the most acute problems of the mineral resource sector. Working meetings of the Business Council will be conducted on the regular basis. Through the use of the format of direct communication between the parties, business communities of the countries-participants will discuss the challenges of investment policies with the government representatives, and they both will work together on resolving the issues.
Supposedly, a few more meetings will take place before the III Russian-British Dialogue, which is to take place in Saint-Petersburg, in November.
