35th session of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council in Russia

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I am happy to welcome all of you at the 35^th session of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council (FIAC).

The world is gradually adapting to the new realities. It has largely overcome the shock caused by the arrival of the coronavirus. The global economy is growing again. Today, we can continue discussing all topical issues as openly and constructively as we did at the previous sessions of our council.

Russia is following the global trend of positive changes. We have also recovered our growth. The measures to support our people and businesses that the Government of the Russian Federation carried out on the President's instructions have produced good results. The Ministry of Economic Development estimates that Russia's GDP has increased by 4.7 percent in the eight months of this year. The economy has matched and even exceeded the pre-crisis level. Investment, housing construction, freight turnover and retail trade are growing at a confident pace. On the contrary, unemployment is rapidly declining.

International organisations confirm the positive forecasts for the Russian economy. Thus, following the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund upgraded its forecast for our 2021 economic growth last week.

We are resuming business activities. Investment demand has become a key driver in this respect. Investment in capital stock has increased. In the first half of the year, foreign investment amounted to about $11 billion.

We are seeing positive momentum in foreign trade as well. In January-August, trade went up by almost 40 percent. Importantly, export expansion played the main role in this regard.

The FIAC member companies are successfully developing projects that embrace many areas. Practically every year we record FDI growth in the Russian economy. It is currently about $185 billion. This is a positive trend.

This year, the capacities of plants and factories have been expanded in several regions of Russia. Tangible investment was made into food production.

Regarding green energy there was a bid last month,on investment projects to build facilities of solar, wind and hydro generation with total installed capacity of over 2.5 GW. Importantly, over half of this capacity will be produced by partnering with a FIAC member. Production of an important medication for treating a rare form of cancer has been localised. The medication is already being manufactured.

Further economic growth will be directly linked with the reset of the investment cycle. The President set this task as a national development goal for the next decade. We have updated national projects and adopted 42 new strategic initiatives with a view to reaching these goals. Each initiative creates potentially large and capital-intensive areas as well as new markets that open prospects for further developing our cooperation and create the conditions for launching new mutually beneficial projects.

We did not put on hold our efforts to improve the investment climate even in the difficult conditions of the past year. All of you know well that following our previous session the period for the government registration of medical products was reduced. The zero import duty of the EAEU's uniform customs tariff on super absorbents was extended.

Investment instruments are being expanded. Last year, we created a special instrument - agreements on protecting and encouraging capital investment. This makes it possible to guarantee investors will have consistent conditions of doing business in our country for a long time. In about a year, such agreements were signed to the tune of some 1.3 trillion roubles.

This instrument has generated a lot of interest. Another 75 applications for a total investment of 2 trillion roubles are being currently reviewed.

More to be posted soon...

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