CBS Investment

OPEC decided to maintain the current quota of oil production, reports Bloomberg referring to the statement of representatives of countries that are members of the organization.

Currently, the quota for the extraction for 11 countries in the organization (Iraq is not subject to the quota) is set at 24.845 million barrels of oil per day, and most analysts did not expect any changes at the May meeting, reminded the “Interfax”.
As the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said, OPEC has maintained quotas in anticipation of recovery in demand for oil by the end of this year. Thus, the organization does not change the quota for the second meeting this year.

The EU and Russia agreed that Russia’s joining the World Trade Organization should be completed before the end of this year.

This was stated by EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton following a meeting with Russian Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

Nabiullina also commented with enthusiasm on the prospects of joining the WTO.

“Indeed, there is a feeling that we are coming to an agreement with the EU. We hope that we will complete major negotiations by the end of the year. We have built a schedule that must be completed by that date” – brings the words of the Minister agency RIA Novosti. She stipulated that an unresolved issue remains in the negotiations with the EU; that is the issue of export duty on Russian forests, which is not beneficial for such European countries as Finland.

International Economic Forum will take place in St. Petersburg from 4 to 6 June. A year ago, when the economic crisis had already affected the United States and Europe, businesses still continued to call Russia a “quiet haven.” The Government in its turn had built long-term plans for the new role of Russia in the world. And in his speech at the Economic Forum, President Medvedev said: “We have waited long for new bright victories: in economy, technology, and social development.” But the crisis still made it to Russia, and loudly announced itself. Following four months of 2009 the decline in GDP was 10%, while the budget deficit reached 9% of GDP.

According to the stated level, China plans to increase the proportion of expenditure on scientific research work to 2.5%, increase the contribution of scientific progress in economic development more than twice and reduce dependence on imported technologies three times by 2020. One of the priorities of China is to enter the top five countries by number of issued patents and the number of references to scientific publications, as well as to take a leading position in science and technology. China apparently is tired of being called the workshop of the world’s cheap consumer goods. It is time for production of high-tech products. And it cannot be realized without innovation.

However, it is clear that innovation comes along with money, or after it. So, it was necessary to take steps that would allow investors to feel comfortable on the Chinese soil. And Chinese took into account that fact – only 30 years of reform China has attracted $ 860 billion in foreign direct investments to its economy. During this same time, 650 000 enterprises with foreign participation were created, which not only eliminated the dependence of a number of industries from imports, but also became the leading suppliers to the world market. As a result, China went to the first position in the field of high-tech engineering products, ensuring 500 per cent increase in exports of manufactured goods from the level of 2002.