13 consulates are planned to be opened in Yekaterinburg by 2020

13 consular offices are planned to be opened In Yekaterinburg by 2020. This was announced by the chairman of Committee of Foreign Relations of the municipality Svetlana Garipova during a meeting of the Programme Council for strategic development of the city.

As Garipova noted since 2006 observed is a steady positive dynamics on such quantitative indicators as the visits of official business and diplomatic delegations to the city. On an average 20 representative offices of foreign companies settle in the city annually. And by the end of 2012 there were approximately 340 such offices working in the city which is 35.4% more than in 2006.

Within recent years the influx of foreign tourists and students to Yekaterinburg also has increased. The capital of the Urals ranks third in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg in the number of consular offices and foreign diplomats accredited there. Nonetheless, opening new consulates remains one of the main strategic directions of development of the city as it considerably encourages the development of trade and economic relations as well as cooperation in culture, science, education and tourism.

At the same time, according to Garipova, despite significant progress, Yekaterinburg is still little known in the world and is almost not represented in the Internet space. The main problem, according to the experts of the Committee, is the contradiction between the potential of the city to integrate into the global system of international relations and underdeveloped interest of the international community to cooperate with Yekaterinburg. Over the next seven years it is planned to increase the number of business missions and official visits of diplomatic delegations by 44%, the number of consular offices - by 56.5% and the number of foreigners visiting the city – by 36.8%.

"Today Yekaterinburg has cooperation agreements with 13 foreign cities. In 2020, their number should be about 32. Increasing partner cities in Europe and Asia will strengthen the position of Yekaterinburg as the centre of international links with Europe and Asia, the countries of the EurAsEC, in addition, in the future it may be cities of Latin America countries, " Garipova said.

Source: http://www.regnum.ru/news/economy/1635700.html#ixzz2NbEd6ar7

15.03.2013

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