On September 2-9 in Vladivostok the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation will take place. Today the forum unites the economies of 21 countries of the region and is thought to be the largest economic unit, with 57% of the world's GDP and 48% of the world's trade volumes.
“In 2007, when the APEC forum was held in Australia, Russia proposed and got the right to hold the APEC summit in the RF. We stated then that the city which would welcome the APEC forum was Vladivostok,” the first vice-premier Igor Shuvalov says. “It was important for us for several reasons. First is the geopolitical basis. We have had to show by the preparation and chairing by Russia of APEC how the Asian-Pacific region is important for Russia, what Russia would do to integrate with other member-states of the format. Second is how actively we will develop border cooperation with China, Korea, Japan and other countries. Moreover, we even border the USA in this region. We want to demonstrate the economic benefits through the Asian-Pacific format, that we are interested in development of Eastern Siberia and the Far East. We want to show the infrastructure that has been established in the region and we are using this infrastructure for satisfaction of our internal aims and integration with the important major economies of the region.”
A federal targeted program was adopted for preparation for the summit, but the financial crisis of 2008 burst out. “It was a big challenge for us. There was a proposal to reduce the most complicated and important constructions in the country – Vladivostok, Kazan and Sochi. But we agreed that the investments allocated to Vladivostok and the Primorsky Territory wouldn’t be reduced. Despite any difficulties, we will try to use the planned budget assignations and all the facilities of the summit which were planned by the federal program will be launched into operation,” Shuvalov says. “For four whole years we prepared the infrastructure in Vladivostok. But more important than the infrastructure was the expert work and the demonstration that we are prepared for expert leadership in many issues of the APEC agenda. It was difficult work which demanded certain administrative resources and redistributing experts from one direction into other. The problem was that Russia conducted and finished negotiations on joining the WTO, forming the Common Economic Space on the basis of the Customs Union, and these issues were controlled by the same experts within ministries and departments. We needed high-class professionals speaking English who would promote our agenda throughout the whole year of our chairmanship. Even during the US chairmanship we improved our expert presence – top officials began to attend APEC events. And as part of our chairmanship we tried to be at the top of our abilities and promote this agenda. The work is hard and multi-faceted. I hope we will hold the ministers' week and the summit estimably and that the leaders will solve difficult problems, such as the promotion of tax-free high-tech products.”
