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The Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, today (June 5, St Petersburg time) continued his visit in St Petersburg, Russia.
In the morning, Mr Tsang attended the grand opening of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum officiated by the President of the Russian Federation, Mr Dmitry Medvedev and participated in a plenary session entitled ˇ§Global Economic Crisis: First Lessons and Leading the Way Forwardˇ¨.
He met at the margins of the forum a number of prominent Russian businessmen, including the Chairman of telecommunications giant Sistema, Mr Vladimir Evtushenkov, and Chairman and CEO of Sberbank, Mr Herman Gref.
A member of the business delegation now in the city, Hong Kong Airport Authority chief executive officer, Mr Stanley Hui, spoke at one of the panel discussions on modern logistics systems.
Mr Tsang and the business delegation went on to meet with Mr Vadim Yakavlev, Deputy chairman and chief finance officer of a large Russian company, Gazprom Neft. The company expressed an interest in exploring the possibility of using Hong Kong as a platform to raise funds for its expansion plans in Asia.
The Financial Secretary and another member of the Hong Kong delegation, Mr Ronald Arculli, will speak at the Financial Day of the economic forum tomorrow.
Ends/Saturday, June 6, 2009
Issued at HKT 12:23
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