Business programme

The Commonwealth of Independent States celebrated its 30th anniversary late last year. Integration within the CIS has proven to be sustainable. Today, the CIS is not only a platform for dialogue, but an actual tool for supporting and developing longstanding trade, economic, and humanitarian ties. In the post-Soviet space, formats with different extends of integration, such as the Union State of Russia and Belarus and the Eurasian Economic Union, operate in parallel. However, they do not compete, but complement each other. It is now clear that betting on integration at different levels and different speeds, which gave the partners in the CIS the opportunity to choose their own format of participation, ultimately turned out to be correct. Could one say the post-Soviet space has become a kind of global laboratory of integration processes? What role do these processes play in world economic relations? All these associations primarily function for economic purposes. But is the economy the only driving force behind integration processes? What does progressive integration mean for countries of the post-Soviet space? What role do these associations play in overcoming the negative consequences of the pandemic and building a new global economy in the post-COVID era? What areas of collaboration within the CIS should become key, taking into account these integration processes and the general foreign policy and economic situation in the region and the world?

Moderator
Alexey Bobrovsky, Economic Observer

Panellists
Sergey Glazyev, Member of the Board, Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics, Eurasian Economic Commission
Sergey Lebedev, Chairman of the Executive Committee – Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States
Dmitry Mezentsev, State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus
Muhammetgeldi Serdarov, Minister of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan
Bakhyt Sultanov, Chairman, Economic Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States; Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Sergey Glazyev

Member of the Board, Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics, Eurasian Economic Commission

Sergey Lebedev

Chairman of the Executive Committee – Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States

Dmitry Mezentsev

State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus

Born August 18, 1959 in Leningrad.
After graduating, in 1981, from the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers, worked as a workshop expert of the Leningrad-Baltic Locomotive Depot of the Oktyabrskaya Railways.
1983–1984: carried out Young Communist League work in Leningrad.
1984–1990: served as an officer in the Soviet Army, in the army press division.
1990–1991: people’s deputy of the Leningrad City Soviet, head of the Leningrad Soviet and city executive committee press centre.
1991–1996: Chairman of the Press and Media Committee of the St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office, representative of the Ministry for Information and the Press of Russia.
1996–1999: Deputy Chairman of the State Press Committee of the Russian Federation.
November 1999: President, Centre for Strategic Research (Moscow).
January 2002 – June 2009: member of the Council of the Federation, Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (CF FARF), representative of the Administration of the Irkutsk Region on the CF FARF; 2002–2006: Chairman of the CF Commission on information policy.
2004–2009: Vice Chairman of the CF FARF
2006: by directive of the Government of the RF, appointed authorized representative for the SCO Business Council and elected Chairman of the SCO Business Council; re-elected in 2009.
2009–2012: Governor and Chairman of the Government of the Irkutsk Region.
On June 7, 2012, at the SCO summit in Beijing, appointed Secretary-General of the Organisation for January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2015.
Ambassador.
Professor, Head of Political Psychology Department, St. Petersburg University, since 2008, CSc (Psych.), associate professor of MGIMO (U) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Member of the Union of Journalists of the USSR and of Russia since 1988.
Marries with a daughter and a grandson.
Awards: Order ‘For services to the Homeland’ 4th degree, Order of Honour, medals, officer of the state Order of the Legion d’Honneur (France), medal ‘For strengthening Russian–Chinese Friendship’.

Muhammetgeldi Serdarov

Minister of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan

Bakhyt Sultanov

Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Front row participant
Igor Maksimtsev, Rector, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics; Chairman, Expert Council on Economics Under the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States

Igor Maksimtsev

Rector, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics