St Petersburg Forum: a third day and no solid news

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 17 Jun 2022 by Alex Teddy
The forum opened on June 15. The cannon of the St Peter and Paul Fortress were fired in celebration by the head of the Donetsk People's Republic. The theme of the forum this year is ''new opportunities in the new world.'' Putin sent a greeting letter to all attendees. It did not allude to the war.  115 Western companies participated. That is a fraction of the usual number. There are attendees from the USA, France, Italy and Canada. The US urged US businesses not to attend. Westerners are attending without name badges. They do not want to suffer for attending. The forum is mainly about investment. But few want to invest in Russia now. It is difficult for people to make plans in view of the war and sanctions. It is thought usual that 4,000 people are attending this year, down from 14,000 from 2021, which was itself a small number due to the pandemic. 90 countries are represented rather than the usual 140.  Xi Jinping's giving an address by video link is not as good as his attending, as he used to do. The Governor of the Bank of Russia gave a speech at the forum this year saying that restrictions on the movement of capital and on Russian exports should be abolished. She has been easing capital controls.The Minister of Economic Development acknowledged that things have changed significantly in 2022. He studiously avoided mentioning the war. Foreign government officials at the forum are from Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Venezuela, Turkey and the Central African Republic. Turkey is the only NATO country to send officials. The Egyptian President will join by video link. In July 2022 Biden will go to Saudi Arabia. Presumably he will plead with them to pump more oil. Russia is...

Now read on...

Register to sample a report

Register
Sign-in
Forgot your password?
Copyright 2024 GlobalSource Partners. All rights reserved. This is prepared for GlobalSource Partners’ clients and may not be redistributed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, retransmitted or disclosed, in whole or in part, or in any form or manner, without the express written consent of GlobalSource Partners. This is distributed simultaneously to our website and other portals used by GlobalSource Partners. The information herein was obtained from various sources and is believed to be reliable but GlobalSource Partners does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Neither GlobalSource Partners nor any Country Analyst, officer or employee accepts any liability whatsoever for any direct, indirect or consequential damages or losses rising from any use of this or its contents.