REC to Teach Teams From 15 Russian Regions How to Boost Exports
© Sputnik / Pavel Bednyakov
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The Russian Export Centre's special education programme to improve the export capabilities of management teams in the Russian districts has selected teams from 15 regions, the REC reports.
The Russian Export Centre announced on Thursday that it has selected teams from 15 Russian regions to be coursed in the skills required to maintain a healthy export market as it tries to boost the country's "non-resource, non-energy" exports by 70 percent before the end of the decade.
In a statement, the REC said: “Fifteen teams from regions where the Regional Export Standard 2.0 is being implemented in 2021 will be the first to receive access to the new educational programme, including Altai Krai, Volgograd Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, Leningrad Oblast, Lipetsk Oblast, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast, Penza Oblast, Primorsky Krai, the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ryazan Oblast, Smolensk Oblast, the Udmurt Republic, and Chelyabinsk Oblast," the REC said.
“The Russian Export Centre's task is clear – to increase our non-resource non-energy exports by 70 percent by 2030. This requires a balanced approach so that many tasks can be performed and a whole host of connections organised, and this all involves a large number of people. We need to develop a clear understanding among all participants in the process of how this task can and should be implemented," said Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, as he addressed the programme's first participants.
"Moreover," the deputy prime minister added, "the Russian Federation's government is at present finalising the approval of the Strategy for Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2030. This high-level document is being broken down into initiatives which I would like you to read very carefully. Each of these initiatives is specific and aims to identify breakthrough areas for our economy, to ensure its competitiveness, a level of development that would meet the requirements of the future."
The REC chief executive, Veronika Nikishina, said: “It is extremely important for us to 'synchronise our watches', to involve the regions in the strategic planning processes of export support and development, and to align these processes with the export agenda as a whole and the work the REC is doing today."
She emphasised that all REC Export School programmes focus on developing practical knowledge, applied skills and are oriented towards achieving a practical, tangible and measurable result. And in this sense, the programme for regional management teams is no exception.
“The main task of the programme is to set everyone up for common teamwork, to create effective regional export development programmes and, in general, favourable conditions for the realisation of export potential and growth in the number of exporters and volumes of non-resource exports. At the end of the programme, management teams will have to design and defend regional export development programmes before the certification commission. Then these programmes will be implemented,” Nikishina said.
The management team of each region which has been selected for the educational programme includes key officials at the level of deputy regional head, line ministers and heads of business support infrastructure organisations. Management teams from 65 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are to be trained under this programme until 2024.
“The educational programme for regional management teams made it possible to close the circle of educational products of the REC Export School and provide training in the export competencies of businesses, from small enterprises to market leaders, management personnel, export support infrastructure specialists, etc. At the same time, it is important that the programme for regional teams was designed on the basis of the regional authorities' and businesses' requests, which were worked out with the help of focus groups and strategy sessions,” Alisa Nikitina, Director General of the REC Export School, said.
She emphasised that the outcome of the programme for each region should be a draft regional export development programme, which will be a key impetus for the further development of exports.
