Interview of Alexander Stuglev, Roscongress CEO to the Regional Russia magazine
- The Roscongress Foundation has developed a number of major projects that relate to various spheres of the country's life. Which of the projects do you consider to have more priority right now and why?
As a socially oriented non-financial development institution, the Roscongress Foundation aims to create communication platforms, covering various areas and directions, allow you to timely respond to the challenges of our time and the needs of the audience, to accumulate in one place relevant and useful information on different sectors of the economy, analytics, social and cultural spheres.
Considering the current challenges, we have made every effort to create and launch projects that are most in demand by various groups of the population.
Roscongress began its activities to support people from the very beginning of the epidemic, from the first days of isolation, continues to engage in it now and plans to continue to act in this direction. These were the most diverse formats of assistance and participation in the life of society - from providing their resources by organizing a hotline to holding charity concerts.
The Roscongress Foundation was one of the first to come up with an initiative to use its technical capabilities and its employees to organize the All-Russian Hotline "We Are Together". In just two days, we were able to set up the entire technical component and organize the reception of calls, distribution to operators, as well as other elements necessary for the functioning of a multichannel telephone line. Since March 18, the hotline has received more than 3 million calls and over 1.5 million calls have been registered. Today, more than 200 specialists from the Roscongress Foundation from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Sochi are involved in the work, where the organization annually holds international events. Having many years of experience working with volunteers, the Foundation invited them to become part of the team and received over 150 responses. Now more than 50 volunteers are working on the line. Based on the results of each conversation, the hotline operators carry out reporting work, analyze the main problems faced by Russian citizens.
The All-Russian Popular Front, with the support of the Roscongress Foundation and PJSC Rostelecom, has again launched a round-the-clock hotline for Russians, with the help of which you can find out about the program to support domestic tourism and get an answer on how to return tourist cashback when traveling in Russia.
The Roscongress Foundation actively engages partners to provide food and other assistance to healthcare facilities and workers who are at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus. We have established direct interaction with the Ministry of Health, relevant regional departments, with more than 50 leading medical centers and hospitals from different parts of the country, in order to hear their needs and try to meet them in a timely manner.
Our social platform has attracted more than 90 million rubles in the fight against COVID-19 in Russia in 3 months: this is the total amount of funds allocated by big business since the start of the #WeAreTogether campaign. Targeted assistance is sent to institutions, applications from which are sent to the hotline or to the executive committees of the All-Russian Popular Front, and thanks to partner assistance, it is implemented as soon as possible.
Also, back in April 2020, we launched a series of anti-crisis projects, which are primarily aimed at providing information and advice to both business and ordinary people.
Special portal “Anti-crisis plan. World Practices ”(https://wwp.roscongress.org/), which aims to consolidate the ongoing measures to support businesses and the population of different countries during the spread of the coronavirus, as well as plans for economic recovery after the end of the pandemic. The project allows to collect and share the most relevant and successful measures and practices at the global level, which can be successfully scaled up and effective in application.
As a socially responsible organization, we could not help but respond to the current social demand and created a repository of knowledge about the coronavirus - an analytical online platform on the situation with COVID-19 (https://roscongress.org/knowledge/covid-19/materials/). In a special section, the latest information about the pandemic is accumulated. The online monitoring platform contains research, analytical reviews and guidelines from leading specialized organizations and development institutions, as well as documents developed as part of programs to counter the virus.
The RCBusiness B2B marketplace platform (https://forbusiness.roscongress.org/) was also created primarily as an anti-crisis measure to support the needs of professionals in various sectors of the economy and present business opportunities to a wide range of Russian and international contacts. The platform allows you to present goods and services, find investors, colleagues and partners, expand the market and supply chain, create new companies and join existing projects. The RCBusiness B2B marketplace is a completely free resource.
The fund also joined forces with the national brand project "Made in Russia" to create a presentation Internet platform for Russian business, and from June 2020 entrepreneurs have the opportunity to use the expanded capabilities of the RCBusiness and "Made in Russia" services, promoting goods and services to the widest possible audience.
The Made in Russia project is a digital trading platform and media platform for nationally oriented businesses, which is already in demand among foreign partners and buyers. The total audience of the project is over 50,000 monthly readers from 114 countries and continues to grow rapidly. Company news and presentations are published in 12 languages, which helps to promote Russian goods and projects with a fairly high efficiency.
One example is information about a new camper based on the UAZ "Bukhanka", made in Russia. The news was published in 12 languages and in 2 months brought 5 purchase orders from Spain, France and Germany. Our news and materials are actively reprinted and used by representatives of the media, on forums and in social networks; for many foreign partners, we have already become a constant source of information about Russian business, goods and services.
In December 2020, we signed an agreement on interaction on foreign economic activity with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation and National Brand LLC, according to which we will jointly promote Russian products in Russia and abroad within the framework of the national brand project “Made in Russia ".
In particular, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, in order to improve business communication with Russian and foreign companies, within its competence, with the involvement of trade missions of the Russian Federation in foreign countries, will provide consulting, information and organizational support in considering proposals that contribute to the promotion of Russian goods, services and intellectual property.
In this toolkit, we pay a special role to regional Russian projects - the Investment portal of the Russian regions Investinregions is actively developing (a project of the Roscongress Foundation and the RC-Investments Foundation, launched in 2020: https://www.investinregions.ru/). The main goal of the portal is to create a unique digital space that unites investors and project initiators throughout Russia, as well as providing up-to-date information on the regions of the Russian Federation, on the conditions for doing business, measures of state support and other aspects of the implementation of business ideas; contributing to the improvement of the investment situation in the regions.
In supporting Russian regions, the Roscongress Foundation is also implementing the Regional Best Practices initiative (https://best-practices.roscongress.org/) as part of the Regional Expert Group project (established by the Roscongress Foundation and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development), which talks about the practice of applying certain support measures in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, especially in terms of small and medium-sized businesses, since this is the most affected part of the business community today.
The Fund, being a socially oriented non-financial development institution, has always paid great attention to the social agenda, the development and maintenance of regional practices, assistance to small and medium-sized businesses, but in the current realities we have especially tried to intensify our knowledge and skills to create those platforms and projects that really can help different populations cope with difficult times.
We continue to work in this direction and, given the current circumstances, pay great attention to the possibilities to speed up and simplify the start of forums, exhibitions, conferences, business events and other projects.
The COVID-2019 vaccine is arguably one of the most effective ways to reduce your risk of getting sick. Of course, it is only necessary to make a decision on the introduction of a vaccine after consulting with specialists. I am sure that very soon we will be able to return to life without restrictions, when the collective immunity increases, but this process requires serious attention to both our own health and the safety of those around us.
- Roscongress is known as the organizer of major offline events. How did the pandemic restrictions affect it?
The event industry today is a subject to change and challenge. The restrictions imposed in connection with the spread of coronavirus infection, of course, had a strong impact on convention and exhibition activities, many major events were canceled and postponed. The industry as a whole was among the most affected industries and was included in the list of strategic enterprises, the targeted support program for which was extended until 2021.
Despite these difficulties, the current conditions have acted as an incentive for the development of the industry in the online format, which, although it was already in demand (webinars, lectures, master classes, the best courses of universities in the world, television interviews have long been our reality), but in this year contributed to the complete restructuring of traditional events in accordance with global changes.
As I said before, at the Roscongress Foundation we adapted our business processes as quickly as possible in order to use all our resources and minimize downtime.
In general, we are optimistic. We were able to translate many projects online: we held online sports competitions, online sessions with leading speakers and experts on various business agendas in which the Fund operates, we launched several projects in support of the tourism industry, in particular with ANO National priorities, launched an online project “ Where to go? ”, we created a series of materials on the benefits of recreation in Russia, we talked about glamping and different regions.
The Foundation held several online events on the topic "Business: A Guide to Survival": market participants discussed ways to overcome the consequences of the pandemic in various industries. Conferences have already taken place on the situation in the oil market, in the innovation sector, in the hotel sector, in small and medium-sized businesses.
We pay special attention to issues related to the health sector that are of concern to every person, and we conduct online and television formats of events on the theme "Peace in a pandemic" with the participation of heads of the country's specialized departments in the field of health and business representatives, who helps to find the way out of the current circumstances to ensure the safety of life and health of citizens of our country.
We have also already held several events in a combined offline and online formats, including the Russian Creative Week, the Powerful Ideas for the New Times forum (together with the Agency for Strategic Initiatives), the Made in Russia International Export Forum (together with the Russian Export center), which harmoniously combined the work of speakers and moderators on the site and broadcasting all events online for spectators and participants.
Of course, our life and the conditions for the existence of the event industry will never be the same, but nevertheless, nothing can replace full-fledged meetings and discussions at the highest level, discussions between market leaders, opportunities for live communication, networking on the site, access to all services provided by the organizers. Therefore, offline will live, but in new conditions.
It seems to me that the future belongs to combined formats, when offline and online directions will coexist. The pandemic has accelerated the growth of the online sector, which has grown rapidly in recent years. This is an extremely interesting task - to develop a new direction in the industry, which will require new competencies, advanced technologies, other approaches to attracting an audience, as well as changes in the minds of both organizers and participants. I am sure that online events are with us forever and we must take full advantage of technology to make our events more interesting, lively and more accessible.
- Please, tell us about your new project - Investment portal of Russian regions?
The investment portal of Russian regions investinregions.ru is a unique information space that unites the interests of regions, project initiators, investors, and funding organizations. The project was launched in April 2020 and is implemented by the Roscongress Foundation, RC-Investments with the support of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. In fact, this is a digital environment where investment projects for which external funding is needed from all regions of Russia from various sectors of the economy are collected and systematized: agriculture, industry, transport, tourism, etc.
The main goal we are facing is to create a unified database of investment projects, centralized and convenient for an external user with a clear interface. The portal team is actively working with the regions, with development corporations and project initiators, collecting rather detailed information on each investment opportunity, starting with a project description and investment indicators and ending with detailed project documentation. All this is important in order to provide the investor with the amount of data necessary to make an investment decision. Entering the portal, an investor sees a map of Russia with investment projects marked on it and can see a brief description of the selected project.
In addition, the functionality of the portal assumes that each region has its own personal page with a description of the region and its economy, basic statistics, news, analytics, investment activities and the rating of the region. We should also note the display of regional support measures on the portal. An initiator planning to implement his project on the territory of a particular region can enter and see what state support his project can count on.
- The slogan of the new portal is “Space of Opportunities”. Can you kindly clarify: for whom is the greatest scope open, who is the main beneficiary - the regions, local business, third-party investors?
The main goal of the portal is what it is being implemented for - to promote the development of the investment potential of the regions. In other words, the portal should inform the investment community about project opportunities in an understandable and convenient way, serve as a communication platform for initiators and investors, and thus help to attract investments to the region. For an investor, such a tool is also extremely important. The team of the RC-Investments Fund implementing the portal project, like former bankers, know how convenient it is to have at hand a single standardized list of investment projects, which is constantly updated, on which it is easy to get feedback and look at the documentation.
As a result, everyone benefits: the initiator of the project - from attracting investments and implementing his project, the region - from the creation of jobs, an increase in tax revenues and an increase in the rating of the region, the investor - from the availability of a convenient tool for finding investment opportunities according to the specified parameters.
An external user can also take advantage of the portal, for example, read news and analytics posted on the portal.
Today the portal has already been launched and is functioning, investment projects, statistics, news, analytics are placed. The total volume of projects published on the portal last year exceeded 1 trillion rubles.
Further plans include the development of the portal and its evolution into what is now commonly called an ecosystem. An ecosystem for the development of regional investment activity and project implementation. We plan to actively expand the partner network of the portal, involve more and more participants who, on a mutually beneficial basis, are able to contribute to the development of this system and regional economies. Our partners are already Russian and international banks, public organizations. In addition to investment projects, the portal will also contain information about export manufacturers in the region, as well as a database of market participants providing commercial services that contribute to the implementation of investment and business projects.
- How will the portal help to attract investments to the regions of Russia? Are there already specific examples that have shown the effectiveness of its work?
The portal is a complete product for attracting investment to the region, which has a strong technical component, as well as a team that provides related services and support. The technical component of the portal is aimed at placing investment projects of the regions on the one hand and attracting representatives of the investment community - banks, funds, investors - on the other.
In addition to a viable business model and investment indicators, the basis for successfully attracting investment to a project through the portal is the completeness of the information provided on the project, since only on its basis the investor can decide whether he will be interested in diving deeper into the project. The portal team is in constant contact with regional development corporations, receiving existing investment projects from them. It is also possible to apply for the placement of an investment project by the initiator directly through the application button on the portal.
There are also plans to provide related services, for example, holding a series of events to promote the investment potential and investment projects of the region with the participation of investors and banks (the so-called “road shows”), organizing meetings with investors, packaging projects, etc. Finally, the portal with projects posted on it will be presented at major Roscongress Foundation events. All this should contribute to the development of infrastructure for project implementation.
A number of hosted projects have already found funding through the portal. For example, the creation of an agricultural cluster in the Trans-Baikal Territory received funding from a large company in Europe. Another successful example is the construction of a center for the reproduction of rare species of birds of prey in Kamchatka, which became a resident of the Kamchatka ASEZ in December last year.