Business and political elite gather for Moscow Exchange Forum 2015
Moscow, 2 April 2015 - More than 1,200 delegates including government officials, investors, issuers, market participants and media gathered today at the Ritz-Carlton for the 6th annual Moscow Exchange Forum.
The Exchange Forum 2015 was the largest in the history of the event, with more delegates and higher-level participation from the government and business than ever before. Approximately 100 Russian and international journalists covered the event.
The Forum"s opening session focused on economic policies to stimulate Russian economic growth and promote investment. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov outlined a long list of reforms that the government is lining up to improve conditions for business. "Priority number one is a fair justice system, and one that treats our citizens with respect," he said. Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina spoke about reforms to create a pool of long-term domestic capital. In particular, she argued for keeping Russia"s obligatory pension system. Herman Gref, CEO of Sberbank, said Russia needs to change the way the country is managed, noting that quality of governance is the most important factor in determining whether a country is successful or not. RUSNANO Executive Board Chairman Anatoly Chubais focused on efforts to attract financing for innovative and high-tech businesses in the current environment, highlighting increased interest from Asian private equity and venture capital funds.
A theme throughout the day was the success of reforms in recent years to the Russian financial markets infrastructure. Ms. Nabiullina highlighted that the Russian markets functioned well throughout 2014 despite extremely high volatility. Other participants praised Russia"s new corporate governance code, which strengthens disclosure requirements for issuers and improves protections for minority shareholders.
The opening plenary was followed a by a session on whether regulatory initiatives and infrastructure reforms match up to new economic challenges, which featured leading Russian and international CEOs and fund managers, as well as senior figures from the Finance Ministry and Central Bank.
A number of afternoon working sessions focused on topics such as the Equity & Bond Market, the National Settlement Depository as well as the Derivatives, FX and Money Markets. A panel on new and innovative sources of financing highlighted key characteristics of equity offers in the current environment – a growing proportion of investors are local Russian investors, it is become increasingly important to secure quality anchor investors and sovereign wealth funds are becoming more active.
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