DEAR PARTICIPANTS AND GUESTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF THE EURASIAN PARTNERSHIP! DEAR FRIENDS!

ara_abrahamyan

 

Welcome to Yerevan – beautiful city that always pleases with hospitality and nice weather.

          This year, Armenia presides over the Eurasian Economic Union, and as such contributes to its development expanding ties with new key partners. Today, the presence in Yerevan of not only the heads of the EAEU member states, but also the high-ranking leaders of Iran, Singapore, and Moldova is a vivid confirmation of this.

The collective potential and coordinated activities of the countries that are represented at our Forum can significantly affect the fate of the people of not only Eurasia, but the whole world.

On behalf of the organizing committee and on my own behalf, I would like to sincerely thank the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation and, in particular, the Minister, Denis Valentinovich Manturov, the Eurasian Economic Commission, and especially Tigran Surenovich Sargsyan. I am grateful to the Government of the Republic of Armenia for the provided support.

It is impossible to imagine our Forum without the participation of the Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Sergey Yuryevich Glazyev. The State Corporation for Assistance to Development, Production and Export of Advanced Technology Industrial Product “ROSTECH” is the key to the success of our work.

I want to express special gratitude to Sergey Viktorovich Chemezov and the entire “ROSTECH” team, who have been taking the most active part in the work of the Forum since 2016; this cooperation is constant and systematic promoting effective partnership.

I am also glad to see the leaders and representatives of industrial enterprises and business structures of the EAEU countries, Europe, Asia, the USA, and Canada in this hall today.

Dear colleagues!

Thanks to the purposeful and well-coordinated efforts of the participating countries, the Eurasian Economic Union has passed through a serious path of organizational and structural formation in recent years.

The EAEU is not only an effective integration union that takes into account interests of each member state, but also an attractive space for investment and development for many countries of the world. It has huge export-import opportunities; colossal natural resources and high human potential are concentrated in this space.

This gives us opportunity to develop industrial and technological cooperation, carry out significant projects to modernize transport infrastructure, increase the transit potential of the EAEU and build new efficient supply chains for economically cost-effective and independent exports from the EAEU area to the large and rapidly developing world markets.

      Dear friends! The EAEU is a union not only for the economic, but also for the cultural and spiritual development of people, who affirm their willingness to live and develop in the atmosphere of mutual support and good neighborliness with their active participation.

In the light of this, I consider to expand the current EAEU Institute’s activities to create of a single platform for attracting investments in promising projects and start-ups in the EAEU space, supporting the development of a single Consulting space and the so-called Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) – business services reliant on complementary and highly professional knowledge for the development of the innovation sector of the EAEU countries.

It is necessary to strengthen ongoing programs by creating a single space for periodic communication between entrepreneurs of the EAEU countries, in particular, entrepreneurs of high-tech and knowledge-based sectors of the economy; to promote the creation of joint, prospective commercial Research and Development (R&D) activities and support their development by creating a common system of commercialization of research results.

For the effective deployment of such strategies, it is relevant to form focus groups acting on a permanent basis in the form of project offices.

Dear colleagues! Each of the EAEU member countries, as well as partner countries, has its advantages and weaknesses: we differ in geographical and economic indicators as well as in the degree of integration into the global political and economic system. Rich trade traditions, tax and customs advantages and intellectual potential make Armenia a vibrant crossroad of the Eurasian Economic Union. Our strong Diaspora, representatives of which are participating in our Forum, expands the borders of the smallest of the EAEU countries to the contours of the globe.

It is obvious that the proper use of the collective, as well as transit potential of the EAEU countries can play the same role as the Great Silk Road played in its time in the dissemination of innovations and the exchange of cultural achievements between the civilizations of Eurasia.

Dear friends! This year we are holding the Forum in a symbolic place – TUMO educational center, which turns ordinary teenagers into curious and inquisitive minds revealing their abilities and opening up new horizons for them.

In the same way, the Eurasian Economic Union, by identifying the advantages of the participating countries and their precise unification, can lead us beyond the frames of the current problems and challenges and make us a strong global player.

I wish all of us success in this work and I hope that the agenda and atmosphere of the forum will set us up for a productive dialogue, search for points of mutual understanding and bring us together in the name of the beautiful idea of the Greater Eurasia.

Thank you for your attention!

A.Abramyan

UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador,

Initiator and Chairman of the Forum’s Coordinating Council