After the visit of Hillary Clinton in Moscow, the U.S. business community hopes that the doors of the Russian market will open wider to investors. Witness the normalization of US-Russian relations, a first joint working group dedicated to economic issues met last Friday in Washington.
This initiative, coupled with the presence of large U.S. employers in recent business forums in Russia, raises many questions and some concerns, the European side. Europe remains by far the biggest investor in Russia.
While an EU-Russia council was held today in Luxembourg and the Twenty-Sept slowly resume their bilateral dialogue, blurred by the war in Georgia, Washington advance his pawns.
Political Stability
Trade between the two countries reached 36 billion dollars in 2008."For years we have criticized Americans for not pushing hard enough in Russia. Things are changing, and this largely through the election of Barack Obama, "said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
In an interview with Le Figaro, the representative of American business lobby is convinced of the "potential" that holds the country and put on a revival of the national economy in 2010. This year however, the GDP should fall by 7.5%, according to the IMF. "Having been hit the last and hardest of all developing countries, it is normal that Russia is also the last to emerge from the crisis.And it has natural and intellectual resources that are extraordinary simply impossible to ignore, "Judge Andrew Somers.
The latter, which also boasts the "political stability" are soft against economic choice of Vladimir Putin. While most analysts accuse Russia of having fallen asleep on oil reserves when the price of crude burning without any modernized its infrastructure, it considers that this mattress inflated black gold has allowed it, at the crisis, to buy social peace and stabilize the ruble. After a descent into hell, the domestic currency against the dollar reassessed.
Oil Siberia
For the president of the American Chamber of Commerce, the market for consumer goods, public works with the prospect of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, and of course the energy are most promising.Recently, the Russian Prime Minister invited, along with Total, Shell and other BP, U.S. oil majors to Yamal, a land saturated with hydrocarbons located in the North. In return for transferring their technology and their know-how, Moscow promised to give them access to the exploitation of Siberian fields. But scalded by the misadventures experienced by Russia in Shell and BP, these promises of openness convince half the investors who are wary of government intervention untimely. Most recently, the boss of the group Rosfnet Sergei Bogdnatchikov, urged the Kremlin to restrict the granting of licenses to Western companies.
The Russian press also speculates on a possible withdrawal of American Conoco Phillips stake in Lukoil. "Companies are waiting to see what the conditions for investment.There are risks and companies must manage, "says Andrew Somers. "With the Russians, the Americans are prepared for surprises …"