NRCC Networking Meeting and Alumni Session was held on 16 June in Murmansk with more than 100 participants. Former students from NRCC Young Entrepreneurship program and other Norwegian-Russian business programs, representatives from various business clusters and government officials from Norway and Russia joined the event.
Among the speakers were Consul General Mr. Ole A. Lindeman from the Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk, Minister of Economic Development of the Murmansk Region Mrs. Elena Tikhonova, President of the Northern CCI Mr. Anatoly Glushkov has presented interesting information. In his speech he touched on the factors that have the most negative influence on the development of industrial enterprises, in particular: ambiguity of the economic situation, the lack of financial resources, lack of consumer demand and the high level of taxation. According to statistics during 16 months in sequence incomes of the population continue to decline, and this naturally pulls down the retail, catering and public service sector. Anatoly Glushkov reminded the participants that on May 25 this year a meeting of the Economic Council was held, where the programs on the growth of the Russian economy were considered in the run up to 2025. 2 programs were presented to the President of Russia: theses of Alexey Kudrin and the program "Economy Growth", developed by the Stolypin club.
The program "Economy Growth” is a complex, system, medium-term program of reforming the economy, in essence - the transition from raw materials economy to a competitive economy, and this requires a change of economic policy - the transition to a policy of active stimulation of investments, market development, the growth of industry, agriculture, changes in the innovation sphere. Stolypin group proposes measures to modify monetary policy implemented in most of the leading countries of the world, namely:
- Reduction of the refinancing rate (key rate)
- Increase the financial proposals through the institutions of development.
Monetary policy is the bottleneck. In the theses of Kudrin continuation of the same tough financial policy is proposed, i.e. the policy of macroeconomic stabilization, essentially, it’s the policy of congealed staying on the same spot. Decisions at this session of the Economic Council were not adopted, but the meetings and discussions will continue. This is a positive fact, pointed out A.M.Glushkov.
Sergey Pavlov, Chief Geophysicist of "Marine Arctic Geological Expedition" ("MAGE"), told the participants about scientific researches in the Arctic conducted by MAGE.
The other presentations were made by CEOs of BR Electronics (Leonid Krutikov), Storvik Consult (Irina Popova) and Oksana Shibakova from the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. Writer and journalist Mr. Halvor Tjønn held a lecture about importance of cultural understanding in Norwegian-Russian business relations. After the presentations participants engaged in lively discussions with the speakers.
The meeting continued with the panel discussion leaded by Jorn Tverseth, Project Manager of NRCC, where former participants of Norwegian-Russian business programs exchange their experiences.
An official reception in connection with the event was held in the Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk, where participants continued networking.
Nadezhda Kumashova, International Dept.Manager of NCCI
