On Monday, February 26, the Kaliningrad Region Development Corporation met with representatives of Jetro company, the Japanese organization for the development of foreign trade. The Corporation was represented at the talks by the General Director Vladimir Zarudny and Deputy General Director Oleg Skvortsov, Jetro - representatives of the Moscow branch of the organization Hiroshi Saito and Valery Eskin. The meeting was also attended by the head of the department of the Ministry of Industrial Policy of the Kaliningrad region Ilya Tatyanin and the head of the Center for Entrepreneurship Development of the Kaliningrad region Kirill Lilo.
Recently, the interest of Japanese business in the Kaliningrad region has grown significantly. The amendments to the law on the Kaliningrad Special Economic Zone, entered into force on January 1 of this year, have become an occasion to actualize cooperation between organizations that promote investment attraction and the development of export business projects.
According to Hiroso Saito, a representative of Jetro's Moscow office, Japanese businessmen received a positive signal for the development of cooperation, having learned about the new benefits and preferences that began this year. "Representatives of our organization, working under the Ministry of Economy and Trade of Japan, exist in more than 50 countries around the world. More than 40 branches are located in the country. The main goal of Jetro is to attract foreign direct investment to Japan and to assist Japanese organizations abroad. Establishing cooperation with the Kaliningrad region is among the interests of the organization and can be useful to our partners", said Hiroshi Saito.
The General Director of the Development Corporation emphasized the traditions of business cooperation of the region with companies from East Asia. "We systematically and consistently develop the eastern direction of cooperation. Two years ago, joint projects of Kaliningrad and Japanese companies were difficult to imagine. But today it became possible, in part because of the logistical features of the Kaliningrad region. Most recently, we met with representatives of a similar South Korean organization Kotra. Many points of contact were found in the localization of South Korean companies in the Kaliningrad region. I am sure that Japanese companies will also be interested in the possibility of locating production facilities in our region. This will help solve the problems of entering European markets and countries where there are strict restrictions related to the origin of the goods. For example, Iran. If the manufacturer of high-quality agricultural machinery Kubota localized with us, it could enter the Russian market and get additional contracts. Taking advantage of our production facilities, convenient logistics capabilities, they could reduce costs when entering new markets. The amendments to the Kaliningrad Region law that came into force will make this effect more tangible", Vladimir Zarudny noted.
Deputy Director General Oleg Skvortsov spoke in more detail about the benefits of the updated regime of the Kaliningrad Special Economic Zone during the meeting.
The meeting ended with a question and answer session, during which representatives of Jetro learned about the successful experience of residents in the region, as well as about promising projects that Russian and foreign companies plan to implement in the industrial park Khrabrovo this year.
"I am sure that this is not the last visit of Jetro to the Kaliningrad region. Favorable conditions for the opening and development of business have been created in the region. To a greater extent, this will be facilitated by an agreement on cooperation, which the Development Corporation proposed to conclude with this Japanese organization", Vladimir Zarudny concluded.