Mar 30, 2010: AmCham Annual Meeting 2010

St. Petersburg — On Tuesday, March 30, 2010, the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia’s St. Petersburg Chapter members convened in the Hotel Astoria for the 13th Annual Meeting and Award Ceremony.

About 200 top executives of AmCham member companies, public officials and diplomats took part in the traditional Annual Meeting of the Chapter, the largest international business association in Northwest Russia that represents 150 companies from 22 countries over three continents. The meeting was led by AmCham Russia President Andrew Somers.

Traditionally, the Annual Meeting has been addressed by federal and regional top-level public officials. This year, the keynote speaker was Mikhail Oseyevsky, vice governor of the City of St. Petersburg. He briefly described the city’s socio-economic and investment results in 2009 and highlighted St. Petersburg Government’s priorities in 2010. He said that “the year 2009 wasn’t easy for the economy of St. Petersburg, but the city has sustained, largely owing to a diversified economy and high levels of investments... The total volume of investments was as high as in 2008... Whereas FDI grew up to a quarter of the total volume.” Vice governor confirmed that the city government’s policy was to be followed in 2010. “We stick to the liberal economy model,” he added. Among the priority industries Oseyevsky listed the automotive and confirmed that the Government of St. Petersburg was eager to attract big manufacturers of car components. Another priority is pharmaceuticals. “St. Petersburg Government is to consider a development conception for the pharmaceutical cluster at its meeting on April 15,” vice governor said. The conception includes granting land plots with engineering infrastructure to residents of the cluster. Smolny is negotiating this idea with four big international pharmaceutical companies, and invited AmCham members to join the project. Oseyevsky followed certain biggest infrastructure PPP projects (Pulkovo Airport, Orlovsky Tunnel, Recycling Plant, etc.) saying that “the city government is going to use the international expertise to apply the PPP model to health care and social security projects.”

The Annual Meeting summed up the Chapter’s results in 2009 and presented awards in several nominations, including the “Friend of the Chamber” given to Russian and U.S. public officials for their contribution to establishing a constructive dialog between AmCham and public authorities, improving the investment climate and promoting international cooperation. Among the awarded Sergey Naryshkin (2002), Grigory Dvas (2004), Kirill Polyakov (2004), Morris Hughes (2004–5), Mikhail Oseyevsky (2006), Alexey Sergeyev (2008), Mary Kruger (2008), and many others. This year, the awards were granted to Yelena Dunayeva, chief of the Federal Migration Service Directorate in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Alexander Prokhorenko, chairman of the City of St. Petersburg’s Committee for External Relations, and Andrew Flashberg, chief of the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg’s Visa Section. In his reply remarks, Prokhorenko pointed out that the Russian-American relations can serve as an example of a constructive and civilized relationship between countries “...largely owing to well-developed, close bilateral economic ties.”

The following awards were also given:

• “Investor of the Year” — to Nissan (presented to the newly appointed general director Dmitry Mikhaylov) and Nokian Tyres (presented to general director Andrey Pantyukhov);
• “Committee of the Year” — the the Environment, Health & Safety Committee (presented to Yelena Poplavskaya, Swedwood Tikhvin);
• “Chamber Member of the Year” — to Alexander Andreyev (SJ Labs), Tatiana Nikulina (EMC) and Alexey Sapozhnikov (GM).

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