On the outcomes of the 2019 Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum
Correspondent | Friday June 28, 2019 13:35
The XXIII Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) was held on June 6-8, 2019 with more than 19 thousand participants and 4,8 thousand journalists from 145 countries taking part. Most participants, 1072, came from China.
The USA traditionally brought the second biggest delegation – 520. A total of 620 agreements worth more than $50 trillion, which was a new record in the history of the Forum, have been signed.
The SPIEF has become a leading global platform for members of the business community to meet and discuss the key economic issues facing Russia, emerging markets, and the world as a whole.
This time its key topic was “Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda”.
On June 7 the Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Chinese President and the Guest of Honour Xi Jinping, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the President of Bulgaria, the Prime Ministers of Slovakia and Armenia participated in the plenary session. In his speech, Vladimir Putin analysed the crisis trends in the international economic relations caused by the balance change in the world economy and the refusal of the West from the principles of free trade, transparent and open competition in favour of the trade wars and sanctions to remain the dominance in the international arena.
The attempts to monopolise the “new technological wave” are also become a factor of instability and aggravating global inequality.
Countering them is possible only by developing the fair principles of interaction in the spheres of high technological services, education, technology transfer and global information space within the UN and G20.
So that the interests of developing countries would be taken into account the Russian President proposed to consider the creation of a data bank according to the best practices and development projects and invite other countries and international organisations to join this initiative.
Concerning the world finance sphere V. Putin emphasised the need to rethink the role of dollar which became the means of pressure after its transformation into the world reserve currency.
Within the Forum, a lot of diverse business dialogue meetings took place with the Russia-Africa business session successfully launched on June 7, 2019.
African countries were represented by Vice-President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, H.E. D. Duncan, Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation of Botswana Dr. Unity Dow, the Chairman of the House of Chiefs Kgosi Puso Gaborone, ministers and other heads of delegations from African states and the African Union, Ambassadors accredited to Moscow.
The participants discussed in detail the current state of Russia’s partnership with the countries of the African continent and the prospects for its strengthening with emphasis put on the search for the rapid and systematic development of the entire range of political, economic and humanitarian cooperation.
At the sidelines of the SPIEF-2019 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Mr. S. Lavrov had talks with his counterparts from the Central African Republic, Somalia, Kenya and Botswana.
During the meeting with Dr. Unity Dow, the Minister of international Affairs and Cooperation of the Republic of Botswana, the intergovernmental Agreement on the Exemption of the Visa Requirements for the Nationals of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Botswana was signed.
As the Russian Foreign Minister said, this Agreement would ensure that our peoples and business community members would have more comfortable conditions for interacting with each other.
The parties also discussed the key issues of mutual interest as well as the cooperation in the Kimberly Process and preparation to the commemoration of the golden 50th jubilee of the establishment of bilateral relation between Russia and Botswana on March 6, 2020.
The outcomes of the SPIEF-2019 demonstrate its status as a world economic Forum, an important discussion and exhibition platform for the exchange of experience to achieve the effective global development.
The Embassy of the Russian Federation
in the Republic of Botswana