President welcomes participants of Nizhny Novgorod forum

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed participants of the seventhInternational forum 'Russia United'. In his address, the head of statepointed out that high-class professionals gathered at the forum toelaborate on serious proposals regarding the development of Russianindustry and science.Sergey Kiriyenko, Presidential Envoy in the Volga Federal District, addedthat the name of the forum had become symbolic. "Now we are really livingin a united Russia", he said. According to him, the agenda of the forumdoes not contain problems of uniting the country, as it was earlier; it hasother questions, in particular, concerning stable economic development.Ilya Klebanov, chairman of the federal organizing committee of the forum,stressed that 'Russia United' was the most representative of all scientificand industrial forums. One of the main issues to be discussed at this eventis the development of innovation technologies in Russian regions."Currently Russia is behind other countries in this direction, althoughRussia possesses some 12 percent of the world's scientific potential",Klebanov noted.A meeting of the association 'Big Volga' is to be held for the first timewithin the framework of this event. Moreover, questions concerning thestate policy in the sphere of support for small businesses will beconsidered at the forum.About 1,000 enterprises and organizations from 12 countries and 48 Russianregions are expected to be among the participants. Official delegationshave come from Belarus, Germany, China, Lithuania, Moldova, the USA,Ukraine, France, Sweden and South Korea. Russian Anti-Monopoly MinisterIlya Yuzhanov, Atomic Minister Alexander Rumyantsev and some othergovernment officials will also participate in the forum..