International business summit of the Chambers of Commerce of the Arctic regions in the framework of the II International Murmansk business week “Business of the Russian north and Arctic in the global challenges of the XXI century. Nordic experience in improving companies’ competitiveness in the Arctic regions” took place on the 20th of November.

The summit had been organized and conducted by the North Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the support of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russia, the Government of Murmansk region, CCIs of Nordic countries and Russian Arctic region and Kola Science Centre of Russian Academy of Science. The chiefs of CCIs and leading experts of arctic regions of Russia, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Finland and Sweden had been invited to participate in the Summit.

The purpose of the Summit was the exchange of experience in competitiveness improvement of enterprises working in Arctic conditions and the development of cooperation between Arctic regions.

Anatoly Glushkov, the President of NCCI, opened the Summit. Welcoming speeches were said by Aleksey Tyukavin, the First Deputy Governor of Murmansk region, Vassily 

Shambir, the Chairman of Murmansk Regional Duma, Georgy Petrov, the Vice-President of CCI of RF, and Ole Andreas Lindeman, the Consul General of Kingdom of Norway in Murmansk, who also were the participants of this event.

During the first part of the Summit there was a discussion of the exchange of business development in the North and Arctic regions, practice of entrepreneurship support and achieved results as well. Anatoly Glushkov, Tlyutay Biryukbaev (Vice-President of CCI of Republic of Yakutiya (Sakha) and Oleg Semkov (President of Arkhangelsk CCI) told about the state of entrepreneurship development in the Arctic regions of Russia.

Georgy Petrov stressed the necessity of the increasing of entrepreneurship business activity in the Arctic region and told about opportunities and directions of cooperation between Nordic countries.

Elena Bashmakova, Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Economic Problems of Russian Academy of Science, made a speech “Priorities of Arctic territories developm

ent in terms of the strategies of planetary North countries” about strategies of the reclamation of Arctic region. Linda Beate Ranndal,  Director of Innovation Norway, told about the development of Norwegian trade and industry and the formation and support of entrepreneurship in Norway. Issues of cooperation development in Nordic regions, infrastructure, transport hubs and investment activity were covered by Timo Rautajoki, Managing Director of Lapland Chamber of Commerce. Jarle Forbord, Managing Director of Norwegian-Russian CCI, gave a report about business initiatives of NRCCI in the Extreme North.

Oleg Semkov told about the support for small and medium entrepreneurship in the Arkhangelsk region. Stig Carlsson, inspector of Trafikverket, Halldór Jóhannsson, General Manager of Arctic Portal, and Anne Hatanpää, Liaison Manager of International Affairs Department of the Finland CCI, made reports as well.

Kjell Hjelm and Vladimir Vasiliev also took part in the discussion of the further development of the North and the prospects for the improvement of business activity in Arctic regions. There were raised such issues as: practice of entrepreneurship development in the North and 

Arctic regions, training and keeping of personnel, institutes and instruments of support and development of business activity, practice of improvement of enterprises’ competitiveness in Arctic regions and entrepreneurship support infrastructure.

In the concluding part of the Summit final resolution was discussed and approved. The resolution will be sent to the Federal government services.