Cooperation between Moscow and the federal state of Bavaria has a long tradition: the Bavarian representative office in the Russian capital was opened 25 years ago. In his opening speech, the Head of the Representative Office, Mr. Andreas Brunnbauer, expressed confidence that cooperation between our regions will continue unabated.
"The new catalyst for this development is digitalization and artificial intelligence. Nowadays, it affects our whole lives. Every day, in Moscow, it is impossible to imagine a taxi ride without a digital application. In Bavaria, incidentally, it is the industry that happens to be the pioneer of digital solutions. Our countries explicitely benefit from cooperation between Bavarian and Russian companies," said Mr. Brunnbauer.
The Deputy Head of the Department for External Economic Relations of Moscow, Mr. Yevgeny Dridze, called Bavaria the most powerful commercial region in Germany, with which Moscow has long been linked economically. "German business in Moscow is traditionally one of the most vigorous and effective. And we can only be grateful for that. For believing in us, for having stayed the course in diverse, not always good times and continued to invest. We understand that we can always count on you and this is very valuable for us," Mr. Dridze told the Bavarians.
Meanwhile, Moscow plans to develop the 4.0 industry under the discussion today. ”In addition, the Deputy Head of the Department for External Economic Relations of Moscow, presented one of the flagship projects, which is now being implemented by Moscow with the support of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry and its direct involvement. This project, the "Moscow Innovation Cluster", is a system that should make doing business as easy as possible, to ensure understanding of what measures exist to support SMEs in the city at the moment and how they can be used, as well as to provide maximum contact between SMEs and state companies.
Ms. Zhanna Shalygina, the Director of Digital Production Department of Siemens Group, spoke about application of Siemens’ technologies in digitalization of Russian enterprises. "We are distinguished by our knowledge of industry. Our positioning is very secure and robust in many industries and we have an in-depth market knowledge. This symbiosis gives us the right to assert that we are a unique partner for the Russian market," said Ms. Shalygina. It should be noted that Siemens has been successfully operating in Russia for over 175 years.
A representative of the Bavarian concern “KUKA”, in Russia, made an interesting presentation as well. Mr. Anton Romanov spoke about the experience of robotization of production. The leader of robotics’ industry, unfortunately, does not see encouraging prospects to localize the production of robots in Russia due to its low demand. He also noted that outdated production methods are one of the main reasons for low productivity in Russia. This is illustrated by statistics. As an example, in Russia, only a thousand robots are installed per year.
Many speakers expressed hope that such meetings will contribute to the expansion of contacts between Moscow’s and German entrepreneurs in their efforts of putting new technologies in production.