Vienna economic forum of CIS, Eastern Europe discusses investments

VIENNA Itar-Tass) - The fifth Vienna
financial-economic forum of the CIS and Eastern Europe opened in Vienna on
Friday. It is discussing the CIS financial markets and the new
opportunities for investment and innovation strategies.
It is being held at the initiative of the Financial-Banking Council of
the CIS and with support from the CIS Executive, Rossotrudnichestvo
(federal agency for CIS affairs), and the Russian embassy in Austria.
"We see the forum primarily as a platform for mutual communication
and the development of innovation and investment businesses," the chairman
of the FBC CIS Coordinating Council Anatoly Kazakov said. "Modernization
of the CIS economies and the transition to a new technological level are
one of the biggest problems today. Suffice it to say that Russia is now in
sixth place in the world in terms of research and development, but it is
only in 83rd position from the standpoint of implementation. In other CIS
countries the picture is the same."
Kazakov said "our infrastructure to implement the innovations is not
well-established yet."
"Our innovative system has only individual elements. It is not
self-sufficient. It lacks the financial component, above all, the
implementation segment. We're still oil and gas dependent," he said. "The
time we had for modernization has been wasted, and now we need to catch
up. In solving the problem an important role can be played by the
development of cooperation with EU countries, which have accumulated
considerable experience in the sphere of modernization and possess a
powerful intellectual potential."
The Vienna Forum, said Anatoly Kazakov, was conceived as a platform
for direct communication between representatives of businesses and
financial structures, but in the long run there are plans to involve
influential politicians in this dialogue. The next meeting, due next April
in Vienna, will bring together deputy prime ministers from the CIS
countries in charge of the economy.
The current agenda, in particular, includes issues of multifaceted
interaction by the financial and banking institutions of the CIS and the
EU, their partnership in increasing the investment potential, as well as
the practice of implementing investment programs based on public-private
partnership.