International innovations forum to open in Petersburg Wednesday

ST PETERSBURG, October 1. /TASS/. Innovations-related resources, development and possibilities for import substitution in view of economic sanctions with regard to Russia will be discussed by specialists at the 7th Petersburg international innovations forum that opens on Wednesday. More than 2,000 scientists, experts and business executives have arrived here to attend the conference from Russia, Finland, Israel, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and other countries. The forum's programme provides for more than 60 business and presentation events on three key aspects: education and human resourcing of innovations, innovative technological development of industry and engineer support, and innovation development of regions and transfer of technologies. The subjects of discussion deal with the results of the development of special economic zones, inter-cluster cooperation, and the idea of establishing a permanently functioning import substitution centre on the basis of LenExpo to accumulate ideas and proposals of officials, businessmen, and scientific community. Within the framework of the forum, Petersburg authorities intend to introduce projects for the establishment of a cluster development centre, a computing engineering and technological hub centre, startups and innovation projects in the field of biotechnologies for medicine, agriculture, and environmental protection from other regions of Russia. It is planned to sign a number of agreements on cooperation between technological clusters, educational estalishments, and business companeis. At last year's forum, over 700 million roubles worth of deals were concluded, organizers say. Participants are to devote special attention to the "Russian Industrialist" exhibition, which is traditionally held within the scope of the Petersburg forum. According to Sergey Voronkov, general director of the ExpoForum-International /which owns the LenExpo exhibition center, this year the exhibition's emphasis is on possibilities for cooperation with Oriental countries, especially China and Japan. A St Petersburg city exhibition will be arranged on a cluster basis from among more than 100 enterprises. Learn more on itar-tass.com