RUSSIA, March 6 - Excerpts from the transcript:

Alexei Overchuk: Friends,

I am glad to welcome the participants of the Russian Business Weeks Integration Forum held by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

Integration processes concern the interests of entrepreneurs of all Eurasian countries, making the opinion of the business community valuable when developing relevant solutions. Leading business organisations from the EAEU countries and the EAEU Business Council should constantly maintain a dialogue with the competent authorities of the member states, the Eurasian Economic Commission, and the CIS Executive Committee. Of course, it is necessary to keep in mind the developments at BRICS and the SCO.

In 2023, Russia will chair the Eurasian Economic Union. The Russian chairmanship’s agenda includes developing long-term strategic planning documents up to 2030 and 2045, as well as cooperation chains; ensuring technological sovereignty; digital transformation, food and energy security; forming a common financial space; developing transport and logistics potential in coordination; intensifying cooperation in the humanitarian sphere; joint approaches to resolving issues on the climate agenda; and realising the potential of the EAEU largely as a self-sufficient macro-region.

We continue to discuss ways of creating new tools to support Eurasian businesses, which will undoubtedly strengthen the EAEU and make it economically more attractive for the Eurasian countries.

In this regard, I would like the business community to focus on a new financial instrument to support businesses in the EAEU member states, aimed at encouraging chains of cooperative ties in our countries’ industry. Last October, a Eurasian Intergovernmental Council decision was adopted to subsidise interest rates on credits and loans issued by international and national financial organisations for financial support of cooperative integration projects involving three or more countries. And last December, the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council gave instructions to draft amendments to the union agreement, including this mechanism in the legal framework. We expect it to begin operating in 2024, considering the member states’ readiness.

We plan to continue creating new business support mechanisms and institutions. We have adopted a decision, and are preparing to launch the Eurasian Reinsurance Company. Russia also put forward an initiative to create a Eurasian rating agency, and this year we will promote this idea.

We are living in a period when ties with economic partners in the West, which were developing for decades, are being destroyed. It is clear that they will continue to deteriorate. In such conditions, it is important for businesses to look for new markets in such regions as Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is necessary to seek and find new business contacts, develop new transport and logistics corridors, and create an independent financial infrastructure that ensures mutual settlements in transnational transactions in these regions. In fact, these areas today are the priorities of the Government’s work to provide a comfortable environment for conducting international business and companies entering new international markets.

Close cooperation between businesses and government agencies within the EAEU and on the external track should provide the EAEU member states with technological, financial and intellectual sovereignty, as well as the sustainable development of their economies in this difficult time.

Thank you for your attention. I wish successful work to all participants in the Integration Forum.