Russia’s most important business event – the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) concluded this weekend with participants signing 650 agreements worth $47.81 billion, according to Kremlin advisor Anton Kobyakov.
“This year a record number of agreements was concluded, 650 agreements totaling 3.1 trillion rubles – the ones that are not a commercial secret,” he told Russian media at the final press conference on Saturday.
According to Kobyakov, this year’s forum was the largest in terms of a number and composition of participants. According to the SPIEF organizing committee, the event was attended by over 19,000 participants from 145 countries, including 1,300 “at the level of top leaders”, as well as seven heads of state, including President of China Xi Jinping.
The presidential advisor said the Chinese and U.S. delegations were the largest at SPIEF-2019. “The largest delegation this year was the Chinese with 1,072 participants, the second was the U.S. delegation with 520 people,” he said.
The business was represented by 1,300 companies from around the world and 2,500 Russian companies, 4,800 journalists from different countries came to cover the activities of the business forum. The number of partners of the forum this year grew 1.5-fold and reached 148 companies, among them two of Saudi Arabia’s largest companies that had not previously participated in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
Kobyakov reported that the organizing committee of the 23rd forum had begun preparations for the anniversary SPIEF, which will be held in 2021. In addition, four new pavilions will be built on the territory of the exhibition center where the forum takes place.
Organized by the Roscongress Foundation, the 2019 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was held on June 6-8, under the motto “Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda”.
