09 July 2002 00:00
RUSSIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER VIKTOR KHRISTENKO MEETS WITH SENIOR EUROPEAN BUSINESS CLUB OFFICIALS
Viktor Khristenko, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, held today a meeting with senior officials from the European Business Club. Upon conclusion of the talk he declared that the European Union might by this September finish work on giving legal confirmation to Russia's status as a market economy country. Lars Vissing, ambassador of Denmark (the country currently holding the EU presidency), he said, expressed this view in the course of the meeting.
Khristenko reported that during the meeting questions of preparation for the upcoming European Union-Russia summit to be held in November in Copenhagen had also been discussed. In this connection he especially highlighted the problem of the Kaliningrad oblast, which will be one of the topics of the summit. "The preparation is presently under way of proposals and consultations by the two sides within the framework of the proposals that have already been sounded at the highest level," said the Deputy Prime Minister.
In the course of the talk, he said, questions of Russia's upcoming entry into the World Trade Organization were considered. In the first place the European entrepreneurs were interested in such areas as the banking sector and insurance. Khristenko added that the European businessmen came out in favor of reaching a compromise on a time frame for Russia's entry into WTO and the liberalization of the Russian market in the banking and insurance sectors for foreign participants.
In addition, the meeting discussed a project for organizing the two-year work of Russian college/university graduates and specialists in foreign companies. Khristenko said this project might be realized in combination with the presidential program already in place in Russia for the training of personnel for the national economy. He reported that under the presidential program several thousand Russian specialists had already taken a course of practical training in foreign companies.
The Deputy Prime Minister also announced that a conference of Russian and European businessmen entitled "Invest in Russia" would be held in Copenhagen on November 11-12.
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