The Big Open Dialogue investment forum gathered over a thousand participants in Ekaterinburg

Nine thematic sessions proposed for discussion by the Urals business community have been organized within the framework of the BOD.

Thus, the participants of the session “State Support Measures and Practical Tools for Urals Enterprises in Entering Foreign Markets” discussed the opportunities for increasing export potential provided by the national project “International Cooperation and Export”.

“Increasing the volume of non-resource exports is a task that has been set both at the federal and regional levels. Last year only among representatives of small and medium-sized businesses more than 1.3 thousand organizations received support measures. About one and a half hundred companies signed export contracts with partners from 45 countries. These include Azerbaijan, China, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Japan. Among the main export goods are metal structures, medical products, foodstuffs,” said Vadim Tretyakov, Minister of Investment and Development of the Sverdlovsk Region.

How lean manufacturing and the introduction of digital and robotic solutions will help in solving personnel issues and increasing revenue was discussed by the participants of the session “Labor productivity and modern production technologies”.

“The connection between new national projects and the role of robotics tools and the application of lean manufacturing principles is obvious, especially during the period of staffing shortages. The federal project “Development of industrial robotics and production automation” provides a number of measures of state support for manufacturers, consumers and integrators of robots. These include subsidies for research and development, grants for small enterprises, preferential lending and others,” said Yulia Polshina, Deputy Minister of Industry and Science of the Sverdlovsk Region.

The BOD participants also discussed where to find labor resources with the necessary qualifications for the IT sphere, effective business models for the preservation of cultural heritage objects, development of the closed cycle economy, opportunities of the Russian capital market for small and medium capitalization companies and other issues.

One of the key events of the forum is the Public Reception, where entrepreneurs have the opportunity to discuss specific issues with representatives of development institutions and the Business Ombudsman.

As a reminder, the public discussion was launched by the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Evgeny Kuivashev, who held an open meeting of the Investment Committee on the margins of the BOD.

Among the federal speakers of the event are Denis Tyupyshev, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Sergey Morozov, State Duma deputy, and Alexander Kalinin, President of the all-Russian public organization of small and medium-sized businesses “Opora Rossii”.

“Big Open Dialogue” has been held in Ekaterinburg on the initiative of the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev since 2020. The Investment Forum is the largest discussion platform for business and government in the Urals.