Bashkortostan President met with an official delegation of the United Kingdom

The President of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov met with members of the official delegation of the United Kingdom. The delegation included representatives of the British Embassy in Russia, the British Consulate General in Yekaterinburg and 18 major British companies. Among them there is Deloitte & Touche CIS, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Pilz Automation Technology Safe, GlaxoSmithKline, ICHARM and Aggreko.

As Rustem Khamitov emphasized at the meeting with British companies representatives, Bashkortostan formed a favourable investment climate. Total there are more than 110 projects in various stages of implementation in the republic now, the integrated sum of which reached 21 billion U.S. dollars.

“We provide investors with great benefits, we try to minimize administrative barriers. And this gives visible, tangible results” the President of Bashkortostan stated.

According to Rustem Khamitov, Bashkir enterprises cooperation with British companies is not actively growing. For example, last year the trade turnover between Bashkortostan and the UK has exceeded U.S. $ 150 million, with about 90 percent of that accounted for exports, mainly crude oil and petroleum products.

Bashkortostan President suggested as possible options such areas for further cooperation as nanotechnologies, production of machine tools, high-precision metal processing and health care.

As the deputy head of the British Embassy in Russia Denis Keefe emphasized at the meeting, the visit of the UK business community "will help to establish commercial relations between Bashkortostan and the UK".

“The UK government considers further development of international trade relations as one of its priorities. The choice of your region for our visit is not accidental. We believe that Bashkortostan is one of the most important Russian regions in terms of economic potential and opportunities for international business. Britain is ready to cooperate in any area of the economy, at a level of both medium and small business. I hope that this visit will contribute to the development of economic relations between British and Bashkir companies.”

According to the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg Neil Semple "rather lack of information about Bashkortostan than the business climate in the region prevents an active partnership development".

“We are interested in the fact that the number of representatives of business circles of Great Britain in our region will be as many as possible” Rustem Khamitov supported Consul General.