St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region held the first joint meeting of councils for investments

On May 24 on the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum the first joint meeting of Council for investments took place at the governor of St. Petersburg and Investment council at the governor of the Leningrad region. The governor Sankt-Peterburgageorgy Poltavchenko and the governor of the Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko took part in meeting.

"St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region are united by old good-neighbourhood, long-term cooperation and a true friendship", - Georgy Poltavchenko told. He noted that these regions – leaders on attraction of investments in the northwest of Russia.

"Last year our regions attracted in total about 2,3 billion dollars of direct foreign investments", - the governor of St. Petersburg told, having emphasized that the problem of further attraction of investments remains priority both for the city and for area. "Without attraction of investments it is impossible to solve the main problems of development of our regions. For each budgetary ruble it is necessary to attract two, and even three rubles of investments", - he emphasized.

Georgy Poltavchenko considers as the main task of joint meeting of councils for investments elaboration of strategy on association of efforts. "Only having combined efforts on attraction of investments, we will be able to reach serious results. It is necessary to agree about the redirection of investors taking into account personnel, infrastructure opportunities of our regions, and also land resources", - he emphasized. The governor of St. Petersburg suggested to make joint meeting of investment councils traditional.

The governor of the Leningrad region noted that the city and area need to resolve in common, first of all, the issues connected with investments into infrastructure – in power, transport, roads. "Today we have to solve problems, proceeding from the principles of expediency, a rationality and neighborliness", - Alexander Drozdenko told.

Alexander Drozdenko took Georgy Poltavchenko's proposal to create the separate working group on investments within Coordination council of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.