President of East-West Institute: Permanent Kaliningrad Forum in Brussels Needed

While meeting with Vladimir Yegorov, Governor of the Kaliningrad Region, John Edwin Mroz, President of the East - West Institute, suggested that a permanent Kaliningrad Forum be created in Brussels. Mr. Mroz said the forum would give the Europeans complete and true information as concerned the Russian enclave, which would stimulate the inflow of investments into the region. At this time, Mr. Mroz is attending a conference in Kaliningrad entitled 'Investments in Russia's Northwest: the Kaliningrad Perspective'.

According to a reporter of the Rosbalt news agency, John Mroz said that his initiative had already been supported by the leaders of the European Union and Russia. The residents of the Kaliningrad Region are no less than anyone interested in the availability of trustworthy information about the region to Western public and are prepared to take part in this project.

George Russell, a worldwide known investment analyst and co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the East-West institute, said Kaliningrad was on the list of the top priorities of this international non-governmental commercial organisation. He highly assessed the ongoing cooperation between the analysts of the institute and the administration of the Kaliningrad Region and said they all were prepared to continue their efforts toward achieving the goals the leaders of the region found the most promising as concerned its development.

The project to achieve the transparency of fiscal activities, that is, the foremost condition of continuing investments in the region, was named as an example of successful joint activity. The project will help to bring the budgetary practices in the Kaliningrad Region in accord with world standards. The recommendations of the institute's analysts were used in the forming of the region's budget for the year 2003.