Petersburger Dialogue, the Russian-German public forum, has opened on Sunday, July 17 in Wolksburg, Germany. The topic of this 11th plenary session is going to be “Citizens, Society and State – Partners in Modernization Process". The forum is attended by about 280 delegates from Russia and Germany who will discuss the development of the two countries, and the activity of non-governmental organizations there. The eight working groups embrace the whole of the societal framework, including the mass media and Church.

      

The delegates were welcomed by the chairman of Volkswagen Group, Prof. Martin Winterkorn, who stressed the importance of business partnerships between Germany and Russia. The Russian automotive market is expected to increase by 60 per cent by 2015, thus becoming one of the largest in Europe. The understanding thereof underpins the German investment policy in Russia: until now, Volkswagen has invested over 970mln euros in their automotive plant in the vicinity of Kaluga, an historic town in central Russia. The plant has already provided work for 5.5 thousand workers and has created further 15 thousand workplaces in the adjacent area. Recently, Volkswagen and the Russian GAZ has agreed the figures for annual production turnover for a plant in Nizhny Novgorod. Every year the plant is going to manufacture over 110 thousand models of Volkswagen and Skoda.

      

While these figures alone indicate just how big the future opportunities are going to be for the Russian-German co-operation in the Automotive industry, Prof. Winterkorn underlined the importance of macroeconomic factors in ensuring the business success. There is a hope that Russia will continue to supply the highly professional engineers, the principal players in the industry. At the same time, there is room to improve the investment climate in Russia which is vital for the Russian-German partnership.

      

The Volkswagen Group has reported the record deliveries for the first half of 2011. Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, the Group deliveries have increased by 28.9 per cent (over 253,700). The deliveries of Volkswagen Passenger Cars have increased by 42.2 per cent, while Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles grew deliveries by 52.7 per cent. The Czech Škoda grew by 20.2 per cent in Central and Eastern Europe.

      

Sources: ITAR-TASS, Deutsche Welle, Volkswagen Group.

Author: Julia Shuvalova

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