Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev comments on the results of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum

"The world is arranged in a way that those who are inclined to cooperate win," the head of the republic said. "We see it in business, in politics and in international relations. I made this finding at one of the legendary Davos forums held annually in Switzerland and that I have attended twice. According to the long-established tradition those who are interested in it and possess some important information find points of contact with potential partners, seek their support and assistance. Then, through organizers, they appoint meetings.

"The logic is quite clear. If interests of both parties coincide, partners meet. Owing to such contacts their business speeds up. And whatever the outcome of negotiations, even if it is negative, getting upset makes no sense. There is always a good opportunity to meet others, not less representative forum participants. This solves a lot of problems. And still I would underline that as a rule such contacts result in concrete agreements or projects.

"Having been basically Russia-oriented in the beginning, the Petersburg forum has been getting to the international scale over the passed years. Today, at the plenary meeting the participants listened to opinions of recognized world experts, quite unexpected speeches were made at the opening meeting. In them, I could say, the speaker raised an alarm over further destiny of humankind making sagacious attempts to look into the future. Others presented detailed development scenarios. It was a question of development of some separate countries. They spoke about global threats and challenges such as food safety or environment, or how we could solve the issue of power resources provision in near future.

"In order to go through growing processes of globalization successfully, from the results of which all humankind could benefit, each country - irrespective of whether it is developed or developing - should make a contribution within its ability. Here we should go from the national to the global. Otherwise one could be left on a roadside. It is also our concern, of those living in Tatarstan. We are not an exception," Mintimer Shaimiev emphasized.

During the forum, on the initiative of those who wanted to meet with me, I had several important meetings. First, the delegation I led had talks with the Colombian vice-president who brought a big business delegation from his country. On the official opening day of the forum, I met with the managing director of the World Bank, and then I took part in the signing ceremony of quite an important agreement on creation of the joint venture of Sollers and Fiat on production of new cars with a capacity of 150 thousand automobiles a year. Thus, Tatarstan is becoming the center of not only heavy engineering. This is, I am sure, one of obvious results of "Russian Davos", one of those about the importance of which I spoke before.

It means we shall move forward.