The Inaugural meeting of the Russian Part of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council took place in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on the 18th of February.
Opening the meeting Mr. Yevgeny Primakov, President of the Russian CCI, stressed that business councils were a very perspective form of business structures interaction, and the creation of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council indicated the progressive development of the partnership ties in that sphere.
Reminding those present of Russia’s supporting Kuwait’s sovereignty Mr.Primakov appreciated the current state of the Russian-Kuwaiti political dialogue. In particular, he marked the similarity or closeness of our approaches to the Middle East settlement issue, the situations in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and other key issues of the region.
According to Mr. Primakov, the positive dynamics of the development of the bilateral relations forms the preconditions necessary for leading the trade and economic cooperation between the two states to a qualitatively new level. In that context the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council is to consolidate the efforts of the representatives of the Russian business circles in order to increase the business partnership with Kuwait.
Mr. Primakov characterized the participation of the Russian and Kuwaiti business circles in the implementation of joint investment and innovation projects as perspective spheres of cooperation.
Mr. Nasser Al Muzayan, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Russia, expressed in his speech his deep satisfaction with the development of the bilateral political relations. He marked the long and deep character of the bilateral political relations and expressed his special gratitude to Russia for the consistent support of Kuwiat’s sovereignty during the aggression in 1990.
Welcoming the creation of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council Mr. Muzayan stated that we needed joint efforts to lead the trade, economic and investment cooperation to the level corresponding to the political dialogue.
He drew the participants’ attention to the fact that Kuwait aspires to the role of the financial and commercial centre in the region, in connection with which favourable conditions are created for the activities of foreign companies, the taxes have been decreased from 55% to 15%, the foreign investors have the right to be the sole proprietors of companies, and the period of the exemption from paying taxes equals 10 years from the beginning of the economic activities.
The Kuwaiti Ambassador named banking, building, insurance, tourism, high technologies, programming, medicine, medicine production, railroad building, connecting Kuwait to Iraq and Iran, metro building in the capital and oil sector development among the priority spheres of cooperation.
“In the next five years Kuwait intends to invest 51 billion dollars in the oil industry, - the diplomat stated. – We plan to obtain 4 million barrel of oil a day in the Northern regions of the country in the next 20 years.”
In conclusion Mr. Al Muzayan marked the large stock concentration in the countries of the Arab Gulf, which allows to diversify the economy and attract money to the lucrative and perspective projects and wished success to the activities of the Council.
Mr. Kinshchak, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Mr. Melikyan, Chief of the office in the Foreign Economic Relations Department delivered their speeches during the meeting. They expressed hope that the activities of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council would give an additional impulse to the bilateral trade and economic cooperation which has considerable reserves.
At the suggestion of Mr. Primakov Mr. Vardanyan, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the group of companies “Troyka-Dualogue” was elected Chairman of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council. In his speech he expressed his vision of the top-priority tasks of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council.
During the meeting the statute of the Russian-Kuwaiti Business Council and a number of other organizational decisions were confirmed.