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The agenda includes the issues of foreign investments attraction to the fuel and energy complex of the Russian Federation, as well as impact of foreign sanctions on the investment climate and state subsidies.

The welcome speech at the panel session Fuel and energy complex and finance – territory of cooperation was delivered by Sergey Voronkov, President of the Chinese Business Centre, Director General for EF-International:

“In 2015, we opened the Russia-China Business Centre, which is the first ever and unique business-Chinatown in Russia. Its mission is to support business contacts and develop cultural collaboration between our countries. Since then, 300+ events have taken place within the centre, participated by 20 thousand specialists and businessmen from Russia and China, including, in particular, 270 delegations from 17 Chinese provinces. During RIEF, we’ve arranged the Russia-China forum Small and medium business cooperation. We hold cultural events, too, that have already been attended by 35+ thousand people. Russia has profound interest for China, in particular – in the face of our developing economical cooperation.”

Tatyana Urzhumtseva, Director of the Scientific and Educational China and Asia Pacific Countries Research Center for the St. Petersburg State University of Economics, congratulated participants of the session on the 70^th anniversary since PR China’s establishment.

The panel session was moderated by Sergey Komlev, Head of the Department for Structuring of Contracts and Pricing of Gazprom Export.

According to Ms. Wang Qi, Executive Director of the Institute for Strategic Cooperation between China and Russia at Tsinghua University, the basics of Russia-China partnership in the field of energy comprise three main aspects: close geopolitical relations, Russia-China strategic partnership in such fields as development of energy, investments and technologies, as well as substantial stability. “Energy cooperation between our two countries can become a powerful impulse for collaborative enhancement of the regional political environment, and a stable political situation can offer even longer political support and material guarantees for cooperation in the energy resource field,” Ms. Wang Qi believes.

Trade warfare between USA and China significantly contributes to global instability. Competition of the two states has aggravated remarkably: whereas by the end of 80s, American economy was 17 times bigger than the Chinese one, in 2018 this breach was as small as 1,5 times. According to expert forecasts, in a decade PR China might become a global leader.

“I am growing assured that oil is not just a tradable commodity, but a financial asset – to a really large extent,” said Andrey Kadulin, Leader of the Analytical Department at Sankt-Peterburg Bank. “When the US dollar upholds against other world currencies, oil is hard to escalate. There are two reasons for that: rallying dollar usually responds to risks, and risks for an industrial sector that is associated with a long investment cycle are never good. Plus concerns that consumption growth rates of energy carriers (oil included) might go down. In the nearest future, such concerns will keep surging up. Moreover, when dollar rates increase along with oil, it provides double pressure on consumers. If we consider energy carrier prices on a short-term perspective, it is 1.5 to 2 years for oil, and for one, I see nothing good in that. Despite all the efforts OPEC or somebody else take, this is a principal priority, just because today monetary policy has been organized in a way for dollar to remain strong, and for trade and risk-related commodities to be under pressure.”

Russia-China relations call for intensive investment collaboration, as well as development and introduction of joint projects in the field of energy. “Western sanctions have limited foreign capital access to Russia, and that made Russia’s bank sector and enterprises turn to financial structures of China. At the same time, investment potential of Russia and PR China cooperation hasn’t been completely unlocked,” said Mr. Peng Qushi, Legal Director of Sinorus Global Capital. “To develop investment cooperation between Russia and China, we need, first of all, to develop a single concept, to increase investments volume, and to reinforce cooperation both at the state and the private sector levels,” he added.

The subject of investment attraction was continued by Andrey Sergeev, Director of the Economic Development Agency of Leningrad Region: “The Leningrad Region is one of the leaders in economic development within the North-West Federal District, as well as one of the top industrial centers in Russia. To ensure that, the Regional Government takes specific steps oriented to investment attraction and business support. The Front office of the Leningrad Region Administration helps investors with project implementation – today, they support 300 investment projects, 44 of which involve foreign assets.”

Availability of an infrastructure or prospects for its implementation determine profitability of Arctic projects, and thus these are the key factors for their success. This opinion was expressed by Dmitry Fishkin, Investment Director for the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization “Investment and Export Agency”.

“In case with the Arctic Region, investors can only be interested in projects with clear and estimated logistics. Thus, every possible reclamation point should be considered in complex, in particular, from the infrastructural perspective. Expenses of the state and investors on construction or reconstruction of the necessary infrastructure can be minimized through consolidation of several projects and their ‘connection’ to a single infrastructure,” Mr. Fishkin believes.

The arctic resource base can become a key driver for Russia’s fuel and energy complex development. Among the most perspective regions for investment attraction in the future, Fishkin named the least surveyed areas of the Russian Arctic: north of Yakutia, the Nenets Autonomous District, as well as Taimyr and Yenisei mouth districts.

Another report at the session was delivered by Zhu Jingwei, Chief Sales Officer for China Telecom Russia, the world’s largest operator of fixed-line telephony, CDMA, and broadband internet. Mr. Jingwei shared his company’s experience in building a global data network – the Eurasian Data Silk Road.

“Having extensive experience, we aim to provide integrated top quality connection services to companies in 33 countries across the globe. We focus on rapidly growing sectors – energy production, financial market, internet media, and retail business.”

The following experts spoke at the session:  Stanislav Babich, Associated Professor at the Regional Economy Department, St. Petersburg State University of Economics; Sergey Drozdov, Chief Commercial Officer for Literra LLC; Semyon Lastochkin, Co-founder of the Russia-China Business Promotion Centre; Elena Alexeeva, Deputy Director for the Document Translation and Legalisation Centre for EGO Translating LLC.