Transcript of the meeting:
D. Medvedev: Greetings from the State Duma. There is not much interest in your project here at the State Duma; there are precedents of much more interest to a project. How are you doing? I recently was at a conference on your premises. I would like to check on the status and plans for the near future.
V. Vekselberg: Dmitri Anatolievich, we plan our traditional Board of Trustees meeting at the beginning of the year which we suggest to schedule for May 17, 2013.
D. Medvedev: Let’s decide on the date, does it have to take place in May?
V. Vekselberg: The Board of Trustees meeting in May is justified by the need to assess the Foundation’s performance during the previous year. We are eager to deliver a report and analysis of its results.
The second question on the Board of Trustees meeting agenda concerns a proposal of a subprogram for the general program titled Innovative Eco-system Development that relates to the Foundation’s activities. These proposals were developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, were shared with the Ministry of Economic Development, and now we would like to present them to the Board of Trustees.
The subprogram will help us develop necessary benchmarks of effective performance for the Foundation in the long-term until 2020, establish financial and economic indicators. I believe this to be an important step and will determine a long-term plan for the project, will give assurance to our partners, co-investors and startups. That is why it is so vital to include this question in the Board of Trustees meeting agenda. We hope for your support.
We would like to discuss two additional questions at the meeting. The first concerns assessment and analysis of the Intellectual Property Center activity. The Center prepared legislative initiatives and proposals concerning patents for local innovations abroad. We would like to discuss ways to support our startups.
D. Medvedev: Today at the State Duma I raised the question of patents and their shortage. Our innovations are not protected and are being reproduced without permission. There is significant value in them.
So what else?
V. Vekselberg: One more question regarding our work with key partners. Today we have signed an agreement with the Trubnaja Metallurgical Company, which agreed to setting up an engineering and research center in cooperation with us. The Center’s fields of research are consistent with ours: development of new materials, coating and certain types of steel for the tube industry. This direction is particularly interesting.
In general we would like to present the results of our industrial meeting with our key partners. I believe that The Board of Trustees will appreciate information on our industrial meeting and our partnership with the leading Russian and foreign corporations. Also we plan to set a direction on how to develop our cooperation with key partners.
D. Medvedev: We will give your proposals careful consideration.