MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax-AVN) - The All-Russian R&D Institute of Aviation Materials held a presentation of the third High Technology in the Defense Industry international forum on Thursday.
The forum is to take place in Moscow from April 22 to 26, 2002, chairman of the committee on the restructuring of Moscow- based defense industry enterprises Frantishek Kovrigo told Interfax-Military News Agency. Its main goal is to consolidate intellectual and productive potentials of Moscow and Russia for strengthening positions of domestic producers and assistance to enterprises and organizations in promotion of knowledge-intensive products and technologies on the domestic and foreign markets, he said.
The forum's most important missions are to develop and strengthen inter-regional and international ties of hi-tech enterprises and organizations, to attract investments in implementation of promising projects, to use the innovation potential in solution of problems related to environment protection, energy saving, security of the community and individual, Kovrigo noted.
The Russian government is supporting the forum, while federal and regional legislative and executive bodies and the Russian Academy of Sciences are taking part in preparations for it. The organizers' committee comprises prominent scientists and experts that contributed a lot to Russian science and industry. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov chairs the committee.
A plenary meeting titled "The Sustainable Development Strategy and the Russian High-Tech Industries" will be held in the framework of the forum on April 22. An international conference will work in panels in the next four days.
The HT-2002 exhibition will work during the forum at Pavilion 1 of Moscow's ExpoCenter. It will feature samples of products that have a good potential on the domestic and foreign markets. They are divided in the following sections: "Aviation and Space", "Radioelectronics, Communication, Safety and Security", "Machine-Building", "Peaceful Atom, Power Engineering, Ecology", "Information Technologies", "Finances and Investment", "Intellectual Property", "Quality, Certification and Consulting", "Microelectronics", "Medicine, Bio-technologies", "Laser Technologies", "Chemistry, New Materials".
The previous forum took place in 2001 and attracted enormous interest of enterprises and organizations of the defense industry, as well as of potential buyers of knowledge-intensive products both in Russia and abroad. Kovrigo said the forum had contributed to establishment of the hi-tech market and attraction of investment, which is one of the most effective support instruments that can be applied to the domestic science and industry.
Over 50,000 people attended events in the framework of the forum. Among them were 30,000 specialists, including 1,850 foreigners. Contracts and agreements worth RUB678m (USD21.9m) were signed during the forum.
Over 3,000 exhibits were demonstrated at a specialist exhibition held under the auspices of the forum. The exhibition involved over 300 enterprises based in Russia, Belarus and Moldova, as well as credit and financial institutions and interested commercial organizations.