Russian Economic Development Progress to Be Discussed at Davos Forum

The achievements of Russia's economic development in the past few years will be highlighted at the World Economic Forum to be held in a Swiss Alpine town of Davos on January 23-28.

The plenary session "Europe and Russia: New Partnership" will be conducted in the Fluela hotel in the evening of January 25, reported the organising committee of the Davos Forum.

The participants in the Forum will thoroughly analyse such problems as relations between Russia, on the one hand and the European Union and NATO, on the other, including in the light of the forthcoming eastward enlargement of the EU and the planned admission to the North Atlantic Alliance of new members.

When discussing the Moscow-EU relations, the Forum participants will pay special attention to the situation around the Kaliningrad region (the Baltic enclave of Russia) and the prospects for Russia joining the World Trade Organisation, to which most European countries are going to contribute. The dependence of Europe on the Russian energy markets and mutual relations inside the Russia-EU-USA "triangle" will be considered separately.

The following Russian officials have already declared their participation in the work of the plenary session: the Russian president's economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, minister of communication and information technology Leonid Reiman, chairman of the Federation Council committee on international affairs Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federal commission on securities and stock market Igor Kostikov, chairman of the Council on foreign policy and defence issues of the Institute of Europe Sergei Karaganov, State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, chairman of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky, and deputy general director of Rossiisky Aluminy company Alexander Livshits.

President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Jean Lemierre, president of the Brookings Institution Strobe Talbott and other statesmen and politicians from many countries will also participate in the Forum.

Taking part in the discussions of economic and energy problems will be heads of LUKoil and YUKOS, Vagit Alekperov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and well-known Russian businessmen and experts in power engineering.

The prices for oil and oil products will also be thoroughly discussed. The plenary session devoted to this question will be addressed by OPEC Director General Alvaro Silva Calderon and president of Saudi Aramco oil company Abdallah S. Jum'ah.

The results of the discussion of the Russian problems at the Davos Forum will be summed up on the last day of its work, January 28th.