The opening meeting was also attended by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi. Fareed Zakaria, CNN host, moderated the discussion. The event participants included Head of the Russian Federation President’s Administration Sergei Ivanov, Chairperson of the Federal Council of Russia Valentina Matviyenko, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin, CEO of Channel One OJSC, director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov, and many more.

Vladimir Vladimirovich reminded the attendees in EXPOFORUM that the initiator of the Forum was the first mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Ivanovich Sobchak: “Twenty years have passed since then, it began as a regional forum and was transformed into an important venue where people could meet, discuss problems and exchange opinions”.

The head of the state spoke in the Hall of Congresses about urgent issues of global economics and politics. He stressed that the world is undergoing a deep transformation and the changes are affecting almost all aspects of life. The sources of growth are in digital and commercial technologies, robot engineering, power engineering, biotechnologies and medicine. He believes that discoveries in these fields are capable of leading to a technological revolution and to an explosive growth in labour productivity.

Vladimir Putin said that Russia is counting on a 4% renewal in economic growth per year. The Presidential Council on Strategic Development will be created to achieve this goal. The department will be involved in key projects of structural economic reforms, improving labour productivity, export support, and so forth. The Russian Export Centre is already solving the task of reinforcing Russian companies on foreign markets. Projects to create a domestic technological base and equipment remains a priority: “Import substitution is an important stage in creating non-raw material export so that Russian can play leading roles on the global market”, the President believes.

The opening meeting also discussed regulation of relationships between Russia and Europe. The Italian Prime Minister said that it is important for the parties to make every effort and try to resolve the problems by “building bridges, not walls”. Vladimir Putin suggested considering creating a large Eurasian partnership. It could include members of the European Economic Union (EEU), China, India, Pakistan, CIS Russian partners and representatives from the European Union. The leader of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, believes that participation in SPIEF by European companies could initiate cooperation between the Eurasian Union (EAU) and the EU.

For the 20th time businessmen, politicians and financial experts from throughout the world gathered in the EXPOFORUM Convention and Exhibition Centre for the SPIEF. The foreign visitors came from over 130 countries, including Austria, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, China, the Netherlands, UAE, Slovenia, the USA, Finland, France, Switzerland, Japan, and others. There were over 12,000 visitors, over 280 heads of the largest foreign companies and 600 heads of the largest Russian companies at the Forum on the first day