PETER A Chinese drone has been put on display at the Ekspoforum exhibition center near the entrance.
The large screens present a picture of modern and successful Russia to the eyes of guests of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Robots and various games have been brought to entertain the fair visitors.
The crowd is waiting for the president Vladimir Putin free t-shirts decorated with thoughts.
In the plenary session of the forum, Putin says that despite the sanctions, Russia is one of the key players in the global economy.
Putin is happy that, according to the World Bank’s calculations, Russia’s economy is the fourth largest in the world in terms of purchasing power.
On stage with him are the foreign dignitaries of the forum, the President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa and the president of Bolivia Luis Arce.
The speech will be led by a foreign policy expert, a professor known as a hawk of a sharp line Sergei Karaganovwhich gained attention last year by being recommended in his article limited nuclear strikes on Europe.
The West is conspicuous by its absence, if the Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártóa not counted. Hungary has continued to nurture relations with Russia.
Very familiar-looking coffee packages are presented at the Tver region stand. The former Tver factory of the Finnish company Paulig now produces coffee under the Poetti brand.
– I’m not revealing any secret if I say that a huge number of employees who worked for our predecessor company are now working for us, head of the press service of Poetti’s company Milfuds Pavel Majorov tells .
– We have tried as much as possible to preserve expertise, accumulated experience and bring it to the new realities of business life.
Paulig withdrew from Russia in 2022, when Russia had launched a major attack on Ukraine. It did not sell its brands.
The doors are open to Western journalists as well
Last year, Western journalists were hardly allowed into the economic forum. Now the doors have opened again.
Possibly, the Russian leadership feels more confident now that the country’s economy has so far survived under the pressure of Western sanctions. The economy is growing, although behind the growth is mainly the red hot war production. At the same time, Russia is increasingly dependent on China.
The spirit of the times is illustrated by the large red dragon decorating the showroom of Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa Bank, in the exhibition center.
The bank is celebrating the high credit rating it received in China. Alfa Bank wants to open branches in Beijing and Shanghai.
– Alfa bank will become a key bank in the development of business in China and Russia, CEO Vladimir Verhoshinsky declare.
– Now we already work with more than two thousand Chinese companies. Our credit portfolio is growing rapidly, Verhošinski praises.
The road to China is not necessarily easy for Russia. The negotiations on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline show that the Chinese are tough negotiators. The pipeline project has still not received official confirmation, although it has been discussed for years.
The theme is multipolarity
At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Russia markets its idea of a multipolar world order as a counterforce to US unipolarity.
The idea finds resonance in many countries of the so-called global south, which are dissatisfied with the excessive influence of Western powers in current international organizations.
Russia itself presents itself as a great opponent of colonialism, taking credit for the Soviet Union’s support for many liberation movements in the so-called Third World. The imperialist features of Russia’s own history and the subjugation of smaller nations have been erased from this interpretation of history, not to mention the fact that the country is now waging a bloody war of aggression against its neighboring country, Ukraine.
Russia has high hopes for the BRICS organization. Originally, the combination of letters referred to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Now it has been formed into an organization whose ranks have recently been joined by Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
BRICS representative of South Africa Ben Joubert says in the forum’s panel discussion that the BRICS countries should start trading more in their own currencies.
– In our own continent, Africa, we estimate that we could save around 65 billion dollars in trading costs every year if we started trading more in our own currencies, says Joubert.
Joubert sees that BRICS could act as the voice of the global south when multilateral systems such as the UN Security Council are reformed so that they truly represent the entire world.
A guest of honor from the hub of oil routes
The guest of honor of the Economic Forum this year is Oman, located at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Because of its policy of neutrality, it has sometimes been compared to Switzerland.
– The Sultanate of Oman is open to dialogue and partnership with both the West and the East, the North and the South, member of the Omani delegation, director of the country’s national museum Jamal al-Moosawi tells .
He says that Oman sees a multipolar world where countries engage in equal dialogue in equal relations with each other.
Al-Moosawi said that in 1991, the world moved from a bipolar model to a unipolar one when the Soviet Union collapsed.
– From the perspective of a history analyst, it is an unnatural process and cannot continue forever. Historically, we see a multipolar world, which is reflected in the multipolarity of civilizations, peoples, religions and mentalities, al-Moosawi described.
Al-Moosawi did not comment on how Russia’s view of world politics, which is at war in Ukraine, is compatible with the peaceful world picture painted by Oman.
Russia and Oman are both oil producing countries. Russia has special reasons to look in the direction of Oman.
– For Russia, one of the priorities is access to the southern seas. Taking into account the strategic location of the Sultanate of Oman – it opens to the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, Oman already plays a special role in this context, especially when it comes to India’s exports, says al-Moosawi.
Financial media Bloomberg reports in March, that the oil exported by Russia to India is loaded from tankers to other tankers in Omani waters in order to hide the origin of the oil.
There is a trap in Russia’s economic growth
At Talousforum, the director of Russia’s largest bank, the state-owned Sberbank German Gref says that Russia’s current growth model is based on increasing public spending and bank lending.
Companies raise wages, citizens get wealthier and get credit. The money goes to consumption, prices rise and labor productivity does not increase, Gref warns. According to him, there is a threat of exhausting the current economic model.
Gref is counted among economically liberal technocrats, whose task has been to keep the wheels of the Russian economy turning under war and sanctions.
They do not publicly question the war waged by Russia. War spending heats up the economy but eats away at the economy’s future. In Russia, there is practically full employment, as the military industry draws labor and hundreds of thousands of men have gone to the front and into exile.