The III International Scientific and Practical Conference "Socio-economic problems of enterprise development"

The Culture and Exhibition Center named after the Tenishevs hosted the III International Scientific and Practical Conference "Socio-economic problems of enterprise development: regional perspective".

The conference was held by the Smolensk Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Smolensk Institute of Economics of St. Petersburg University of Management and Economics, with the support of the Governor of Smolensk region Alexey Ostrovskiy and the regional Administration, as well as the regional branch of the Russian Public Movement "People’s Front".

The conference was attended by the Deputy Governor of Smolensk region Igor Skobelev, the Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Alexander Rybakov, the Vice-Rector of St. Petersburg State University of Management and Economics Gennady Kostin, heads of the relevant authorities and the business community of the Central Federal District of Russia and the Republic of Belarus.

The current difficult period strongly dictates the need to engage an increasing number of people wishing to set their own company in business activities, which helps to expand the market for goods and services, to create jobs for the population. The conference discussed the general measures to improve the business and investment climate, the integration of the regional business into the international economic space, to increase its competitiveness, and economic sector activity in the context of Russia's entering the WTO.

As world experience shows, it is small and medium businesses that are able to bring the economy of the country as a whole and of individual regions to a qualitatively new development platform, to solve a number of important social issues. First of all, according to some experts, this applies to those subjects of the Russian Federation, which were not originally the regions supplying raw material, such as Smolensk. Therefore, the experience of building a partnership dialogue between the business and the authorities in our region is in great demand with the other regions, as evidenced by the decision to hold the conference in Smolensk.

At the instruction of the Head of the region Alexey Ostrovskiy, the Vice-Governor Igor Skobelev gave a talk on the experience of creating a favorable business climate and increasing the investment attractiveness of the Smolensk region. The Deputy Head of the region noted that the regional authorities provide real help to the small and medium-sized businesses in several ways: "The period of work of the new Administration of the region is characterized by the intensive consultations on the platforms of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, of the Regional Scientific and Industrial Union with business community to develop the most effective measures to support entrepreneurs".

The experience shows that the really effective measure of business support in the difficult economic situation is not the compensation of costs incurred by businesses, but tax benefits designed to stimulate investments in the economic sector. "To achieve a reasonable balance of the administrative relations between the investors and the regional authorities, we have simplified a number of procedures and cut down the number of documents which the investor has to submit," - said the Vice-Governor in this connection.

During the scientific and practical conference there the participants could exchange ideas, make business contacts, and the general result was further improvement of different aspects of the Russian business development , improvement of business image of the regions and business community reputation.

Also within the framework of the forum the certificates of entering the Anti-Corruption Charter of the Russian Business were awarded.