OREANDA-NEWS. Meeting of Head of Karelia Alexander Khudilainen with Consul General of Italy in St.Petersburg Luigi Estero who has arrived in Petrozavodsk on an official visit took place.

Deputy Head of the Republic of Karelia and Minister of Economic Development of the Republic of Karelia Valentin Chmil, acting representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in Petrozavodsk Andrei Kudryavtsev, Director of Italian Institute of Culture in St.-Petersburg Dr.Redenta Maffettone, representative of the Russian-Italian Cultural and Sports Association Dmitry Litvinov have taken part in the meeting.

Italy is one of the ten leading partner countries of the Republic of Karelia. Iron ores, paper, wood, consumer goods were traditionally exported to Italy. Most of imports to Karelia are industrial equipment, articles of food, hardware, alcohol, provisions, consumer goods, mineral products. However, in recent years, as a consequences of the global economic crisis, trading exchange between Italy and Karelia gradually decreased, and on results of 2012 has dropped almost two-fold.

As Alexander Khudilainen and Luigi Estero observed during the talks, the parties are interested in active growth of cooperation.

– We are open and ready for a dialogue, – Alexander Khudilainen said. – I hope, your visit will give a new impulse to development of business relations between Karelia and Italy which, undoubtedly, possess a significant potential.

Head of Karelia has told Consul General about the basic directions of social and economic development of the republic on which the Government of Karelia works, as well as with events that took place recently in the legal framework which give significant advantages to both Russian, and foreign investors.

The republic is interested in new technologies of timber and stone processing, production of building materials on the basis of local raw materials, energy saving, use of bioresources, development of hydropower engineering and tourism infrastructure, use of local kinds of fuel as power resources.

As Luigi Estero observed, the interest to Russia is traditionally high in Italy. Karelia and Italy support close and fruitful cooperation in the sphere of culture. Experts in wooden architecture visit historical places of Karelia and Italy, exchange ideas at joint seminars and conferences, hold master-classes, discuss issues of creation of ethnocultural centers, problems of restoration of monuments of wooden architecture, as well as opportunities of mobilization of investments for restoration and preservation of monuments of wooden architecture within the scope of programs of funds of the European Union.

University of Florence and Petrozavodsk State University, mayoralties of the cities of Massamartana and Montepulciano and administration of Olonets municipal region support active cooperation in the sphere of culture and education. Within several years Karelia was a venue for international student camps for students studying architectural objects and natural landscapes, in which teachers and students from the University of Florence and experts of PetrSU participated. Karelia took an active part in staging of the Year of Russian Culture and Russian Language in Italy and Italian Culture and Language in Russia in 2011. Today Italy and Karelia exchange concerts of modern performers on a regular basis within the framework of cultural projects.

At the same time Consul General has expressed readiness to promote more active involvement of representatives of Italian business to Karelia and expansion of contacts.

– We have got a lot of areas of common interest, – Luigi Estero said. – So we came to continue and develop our cooperation, to receive more information on projects in which Italian business could take an active part.

In particular, Consul General mentioned, it could be cooperation in development of transport network and construction of highways, increase in export of paper industry products to Italy, development of tourism, distribution of environmentally friendly technologies, and preservation of the environment. Consul General has got interested in the offer of Head of Karelia to representatives of the Italian business to take part in establishing new joint cabinet making enterprises.

Luigi Estero has responded quite willingly to Alexander Khudilainen's suggestion to stage joint Alpine skiing competitions in our republic and to invite there a team led by the head of one of the municipalities of Italy. As Alexander Khudilainen said, he would captain the team of Karelia at the competition.