St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to create new reality

The jubilee XX St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is opening on Thursday in the Expoforum congress and exhibition center.

The forum is the most significant annual economic conference in Russia and is often called by the press “the Russian Davos” similar to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland’s Davos.

The jubilee forum’s program will be one of the most extensive for the period of its holding: three days include over 100 events, including a forum of the Business 20, as well as business forums of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), a summit of energy companies, a conference on economic development of the Arctic and a special session of the Valdai Discussion Club.

The forum will for the first time be held in a St. Petersburg suburb, in a recently built congress and exhibition center, Expoforum, one of the biggest in Eastern Europe.

The event will be attended by representatives of 600 Russian and some 500 foreign companies from 60 countries – the United States, France, Switzerland, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, Italy etc.

According to Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov, 230 foreign companies will be represented at the level of CEOs. He noted “powerful presence of representatives of other states, extensive participation of leading international companies, including from countries where it is not recommended to send their representatives to the forum.”