The “Russia-Latin America” Forum is held for the second time. The first such event took place in the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo, in March 2016. This year the largest forum was held as part of the Intergovernmental Russian-Cuban Commission on Trade, Economic and Scientific and Technical Cooperation chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yury Borisov and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz. In addition, this time a grandiose event for the Latin American region “fit” in the work of the 36th International Havana Fair “FIHAV-2018”. In connection with the “layering” in Havana of international events, the island of Freedom during this period was visited by the representatives of Russian and Latin American official and business circles, well-known regional politicians and large investors.
The Forum was organized by the “Roscongress” Foundation and the Bering-Bellingshausen Institute for the Americas (IBA) with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investments of the Republic of Cuba. The general partner of the international event was the company “TECHTSVETMET”.
During the event, the speakers more than once turned to statistics. Over the past 5 years, trade with Latin American and Caribbean countries is constantly increasing, the share of Russian companies in the region has increased significantly, and new projects are emerging. “Rosneft”, “Power Machines”, “Gazprom”, “Rosatom” and others should be singled out from a number of Russian enterprises that are actively working in the region. Experts believe that the event in Havana once again made it possible to draw attention to key areas of cooperation and identify new contacts Russia with the countries of the region. The prospects for investment cooperation, as well as issues of state support for Russian and Latin American business, were widely discussed on the margins of the forum. A large block of the program was devoted to the development of integration processes taking place both in the Eurasian space and in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The advisor to the President of Russia Anton Kobyakov in his speech noted that this business forum every year helps to strengthen and deepen the dialogue between Russia and Latin America, and continues the line begun at the largest international economic platform – St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The central event of the business program of the forum was a plenary session devoted to joint projects of Russia and countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, taking place in the field of energy, industry, transport infrastructure and agriculture. In addition, global issues of the development of Russian-Latin American relations were discussed. The meeting was moderated by a well-known TV presenter, the Deputy Director of the State TV Channel “Channel Russia”, the President of the Bering-Bellingshausen Institute for the Americas – Serguéi Briliov.
This year the Russian exposition was organized with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, about two dozen companies from different sectors of the economy were represented, including: “GAZ Group”, “Tat-Export”, “Sinara – Transport Machines”, “Engineering Company «2K»”, “Railtransholding”, etc. In these few days, an extensive business program was carried out at the exhibition, during which negotiations were held, investment projects were discussed, the potential of the Cuban market for Russian enterprises, issues transport interaction, as well as the search for potential customers and the expansion of business contacts.