OREANDA-NEWS. December 17, 2012. The Third International Conference “Investments in Sustainable Development. Partnership between Financial Institutions and Real Sector of Economy”. State Corporation ‘Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)’ acted as the Conference’s organizer.

The Conference was held with the assistance of Russia’s Economic Development Ministry, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the UN Environment Programme Financial Initiative and the UN Global Compact in the Russian Federation.

The Conference’s participants discussed the process of cooperation between financial institutions representatives of the real sector of the economy in applying principles of ecological and social responsibility. Particular attention was given to Russian and international experience in applying principles of corporate social responsibility, advantages and barriers on the way of introducing corporate social responsibility in Russia.

In his welcoming address to the Conference’s participants Member of the Board , Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin said, “Our investments are designed to qualitatively change the situation not only at specific enterprises but in the whole sectors and regions of the country. In the course of implementing projects accepted by Vnesheconombank for financing in the period of 2007-2011 more than 40 thousand jobs were retained and more than 150 thousand jobs were created and are planned to be created.

M. Kopeikin also stressed that “application of innovative socially and environmentally responsible approaches to working with the real sector of the economy might prove attractive from a commercial point of view for all participants in the investment process”. “There is no doubt that voluntary introduction of social and ecological responsibility mechanisms will reduce credit and investment risks and make it possible to accumulate significant non-financial capital which is always inherently linked to long-term economic effects”, he stressed.

In the attendance of the conference were Vnesheconombank’s partners from the International Finance Corporation, the China State Development Bank, the Eurasian Development Bank, Vnesheconombank’s subsidiaries, representatives of line ministries and institutions, regional government authorities, specialists from Russian and foreign financial institutions and real sector companies as well as experts of leading nongovernmental organizations and initiatives in social and ecological responsibility.

The Conference resulted in adopting a road map to responsibly fund Russia’s real sector of the economy for a period of up to 2015, that is, practical recommendations for financial institutions and real sector companies interested in mutually beneficial partnership in long-term sustainable development.