OECD Praises VEB.RF’s Contribution Towards UN SDGs of City Development
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has praised VEB.RF’s contribution to the development of a new system measuring the quality of city development in pursuit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Headed by VEB.RF’s Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Shulenin, a team of VEB.RF and Russia-OECD Center RANEPA accomplished in the spring of 2019 the goal of having Moscow included as one of the nine pilot cities and regions in the OECD’s large-scale project to assess how cities and regions use the SDGs to formulate and implement their development policies. The Russian capital’s participation in the project not only will help to strengthen cooperation between Russia and the OECD, but also will provide metrics on the attainment of the SDG, enabling qualitatively new indicators to be used to benchmark Moscow against its peers in other countries.
The OECD launched an online tool with more than 60 indicators to measure the distance towards the SDGs in regions and cities of OECD counties. Moscow will also be covered by the OECD tool.
According to the OECD report A Territorial Approach to the Sustainable Development Goals (the first results of this project were published on 10 February 2020), the City Index developed jointly by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Federal Service for State Statistics of the Russian Federation and VEB.RF makes it possible to use the OECD’s international indicators to measure how Russian cities work towards a better quality of life and the SDGs.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international economic organisation of developed countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy. The OECD works to resolve socio-economic and managerial problems arising out of globalisation and explores the opportunities offered by globalisation.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 goals designed for all countries that strive for economic, social and environmental prosperity. The SDGs were adopted by world leaders in 2015 to implement the principles of sustainability, zero poverty and environmental protection.
The Board of Directors of Russian Export Center (REC) resolved to replace REC’s current CEO Andrey Slepnev by Veronika Nikishina, a member of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) and the EEC minister in charge of trade from 2016. In addition, the Board of Directors approved the 100 per cent attainment of REC’s corporate performance indicators.
As decided by the Board of Directors, Andrey Slepnev is to leave office on 9 February, and Veronika Nikishina will take up her new post on 10 February. When all intergovernmental approval formalities are completed, Slepnev will be appointed as the EEC minister in charge of trade.
Igor Shuvalov, Chairman, VEB.RF, and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Russian Export Center: “I’ve been working closely with Ms Nikishina for years. She chose a career path in the development of trade and export and contributed to the foundation of Russian Export Center. Her experience will foster REC’s efforts to encourage non-energy exports and reach the ambitious goals of the national project. On behalf of all members of the VEB.RF team and on behalf of the development institutions, I’d like to thank Andrey Slepnev for his work. I’m sure Ms Nikishina and Mr Slepnev will continue to cooperate closely with each other in their new positions.”
Veronika Nikishina: “REC has already come a long way since its inception. We have a lot of work to do to make sure our activities acquire a new quality, that we are viewed by all exporters as a reliable, technologically advanced and maximally customer-focused partner. A partner that understands the exporter’s problems and helps to solve them quickly and effectively.”
REC has provided $19.5 billion in export support in the past year, with a target of $17.2 billion. This has been the highest figure since the government created this institution to support non-energy exports. This indicator increased by 3.7% on 2018 ($18.8 billion in export support), 35.4% on 2017 ($14.4 billion), 107.4% on 2016 ($9.4 billion) and 195.5% on 2015 ($6.6 billion).
REC contributed to several major transactions related to the supply of engineering products to Cuba, Egypt and Uzbekistan and supported projects in Turkmenistan and large deliveries of agricultural products to China as well as EAEU and EU countries. As a key organiser of the Year of Africa in Russia, REC held the Russia-Africa Economic Conference in cooperation with Afreximbank and co-organised the economic forum as part of the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi. This resulted in establishing an institutional trade finance mechanism involving more than 10 African countries.
REC also met the target of 11,000 supported exporters. The number of such exporters was 3% and 8% higher than the 2019 target and last year’s result respectively.
Overall, the REC Group’s financial instruments supported 12.6% or, the agent’s and promoter’s support for exporters, 17.6% of Russia’s total non-energy exports in 2019, which conforms to the best international benchmarks.