As press secretary of the St. Petersburg governor Natalya Kutabayeva told RIA Novosti, on Wednesday Mrs. Matviyenko had meetings with Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Shoichi Nakagawa and the members of the Japanese Federation of Economic Organisations (Keidanren) at which the sides voiced their interest in intensifying the business contacts with Russia's Northern Capital.
According to Ms. Kutabayeva, the Japanese side deems it to be extremely useful to set up a permanently operating business organisation capable of carrying out research before taking decisions on concrete commercial projects.
A representative of Hitachi Ltd. concern voiced an intention to cooperate with St. Petersburg companies in the software sphere in which Russian programmers are considered to be among the best in the world.
Governor Matviyenko told about the problems of the communal sphere and infrastructure of St. Petersburg. It is possible that the city authorities will collaborate in this sphere with the specialists of the Marubeni Corporation, Ms. Kutabayeva said. According to her, modernisation of the rolling stock of the city's metro and railways was cited among the possible joint projects.
Valentina Matviyenko is now holding talks with representatives of Japanese airline JAL which is considering a possibility to open direct air service between St. Petersburg and Tokyo.
