SPIEF opening: unmanned KAMAZ bus, a bored Agabegyan and Minnikhanov in demand

09:00, 05.06.2017

Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Otkritie FK Bank explains why he decided not to clean up Tatfondbank

St. Petersburg International Economic Forum opened on 1 June. It has become the world's leading platform for communication in business circles and discussing key economic issues. The correspondent of Realnoe Vremya in advance arrived in St. Petersburg Expoforum, where the major event took place, she followed as the first agreements signed, including by the president of the Republic of Tatarstan, and also assessed how clearly our stands were presented.

Strict security guards and familiar interiors

The venue for SPIEF this year was the congress and exhibition center Expoforum in St. Petersburg. Despite a huge number of people wanting to get into Expo and the need to check for special badges and absence of prohibited items, it took little time to enter the building, not standing in huge queues in the biting wind.

By the way, the organizers took the control of visitors very seriously: even a small bottle of water in your backpack did not disappear from the friendly guards – they immediately stopped and forced get rid of a ''forbidden'' thing.

Returning to the theme of easy and quick access to Expo: perhaps, we should thank the numerous employees at checkpoints, allowing people in turbo mode. Perhaps, it is because we arrived at the forum an hour and a half before the first business breakfasts starting at 8 a.m.

Ruben Aganbegyan: ''We're just really good friends with your republic, with the management, with major companies and we are always ready to render the feasible help, but mostly with word than expertise''

''We never wanted to clean up Tatfondbank...''

Walking through the passage, the interior of which resembled the interiors of Innopolis, one could come up with rare VIPs. Among the ''early birds'' there were Chairman of the Supervisory Council of Otkritie FK Bank PJSC Ruben Aganbegyan. In conversation with the correspondent of Realnoe Vremya, he explained why Otkritie Bank decided not to do reorganization of Tatfondbank.

''To be honest, we never intended [to reorganise]. We're just really good friends with your republic, with the management, with major companies and we are always ready to render the feasible help, but mostly with word than expertise. We have experience in similar situations, so we can only give advice on some things.

It is very important to understand that, in our opinion, all this activity on the work with troubled assets, banks, it is being restructured by our regulator, it's looking for new forms — you've seen by the example of Peresvet the complicity as a form, when all the creditors are also involved in this.

The point is that our maximum interest is everything was okay in the republic and if you need our help, we always help,'' said our interlocutor.

Rustam Minnikhanov, Nikolai Nikiforov and Robert Urazov have signed an agreement on cooperation in the preparation and implementation in 2017 of the industry championship in the field of IT WorldSkills

''Islands'' of Tatarstan at SPIEF

While we were talking with Mr. Aganbegyan in the passage of Expoforum, literally behind our backs, adjacent to the passage pavilions, the life was seething in full — dozens of exhibition stands of the Russian companies and regions were preparing for the opening. Staff to gloss rubbed horizontal surface, rearranging chairs and tables, setting up the monitors.

Closer to 9 a.m., the stand of the Republic of Tatarstan, which showed Kazan Expo, the plant for the production of led lamps Fereks, SEZ Alabuga and other projects, was ready to meet President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov. The members of the presidential pool, namely Minister of Informatization and Communications Roman Shaikhutdinov, Minister of Sport of RT Vladimir Leonov and Head of Investment Development Agency Taliya Minullina arrived early and waited for the head of the republic near the stand.

As soon as Rustam Minnikhanov arrived at our little ''island of Tatarstan'', he almost immediately was taken to the first signing — President of Tatarstan, Minister of Communications of Russia Nikolay Nikiforov and Director General of the Agency of development of professional communities WorldSkills of Russia Robert Urazov signed an agreement on cooperation in the preparation and implementation in 2017 of the industry championship in the field of IT WorldSkills. A whole series of signings was awaiting our president.

In a nearby pavilion there was another stand of Tatarstan — KAMAZ. To attract the attention, nearby there was parked a unmanned electro bus, which, according to preliminary estimates, may appear on our roads in 10-12 years.

''The electro bus does not provide the driver's seat. This is a totally new look on a transport system – something between a taxi, private car and public transport,'' revealed to Realnoe Vrmeya the features of the unmanned bus the engineer of the FSUE NAMI Dmitry Shishkov. ''It's already being tested, now it being is done in Moscow, and the first results are satisfactory. In general, now there is preparing a test site in Dmitrov for unmanned vehicles, and we are planning to relocate there.''

SPIEF participants had another two days of meetings, press conferences, signings and meetings. Realnoe Vrmeya continues to follow the events of the forum.