Tatarstan-Sweden: a wide range of cooperation

Cooperation of Tatarstan and Sweden was discussed at the Kazan Kremlin on 22nd March at the official meeting of President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sweden in the RF Sven Hirdman.

Referring to the IKEA store opened earlier that day, Mintimer Shaimiev emphasized that their understanding is substantiated by new achievements from meeting to meeting. Trade cooperation is just one of directions of bilateral interaction. It is even of more importance in the sphere of telecommunications and information technologies, in which Sweden is among the world leaders.

Sven Hirdman said that future belonged to this, showing genuine interest in the “Electronic Tatarstan” program implemented in the republic. Mr Ambassador agreed that this was a breakthrough program, which would bring residents of the republic to the world standards and let them live in the world information space. He said that he would tell representatives of Swedish companies about the program, and they might be interested in cooperation with Tatarstan within the framework of this project. It is known that Sweden occupies quite a substantial sector in the sphere of telecommunications and information technologies (Russia-Swedish intergovernmental seminar on information technologies was held recently in Moscow).

The parties also discussed technological parks, as another direction of cooperation. They appeared in Tatarstan after studying the experience of Swedish specialists. Work of Tatarstan technological parks is just being organized, but it is of great need. Today it is necessary to employ higher schools, giving them orders from the state and assist them in implementation of the most interesting projects. The President of Tatarstan said he was going to invite scientists and managers from Sweden, for they have great experience in this field.

Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the RT President Mr Timur Akulov, Mrs Hirdman, and others attended the meeting.