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ASI invites Putin to attend forum of leaders

"They just want to be heard and to realize that they are an important factor in the national economy,” ASI Director-General Nikitin explained

MOSCOW, December 9 (Itar-Tass) —— The Agency of Strategic Initiatives (ASI) will hold a forum of leaders, ASI Director-General Andrei Nikitin told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a working meeting. “We would like to hold a forum of leaders and to invite to it real representatives of medium business, people who are engaged in production, who produce anything and not just sell something or use some resources. We would like to bring them together and to discuss with them the problems, which are of interest for us. Of course, we would like you to attend the forum,” he said.

According to Nikitin, those people have many interesting questions to ask. Most of them deal with the opportunities created by development institutions. “At present not all the regional business people understand how to use the mechanisms existing in the country. This is why they wish to attend the forum. They just want to be heard and to realize that they are an important factor in the national economy and are needed by the country,” Nikitin explained.

Some 100 people are going to take part in the forum. “Where do those people come from?” Putin asked. Nikitin explained that they had submitted applications to a contest in ASI. Potential participants in the forum will pass through several stages of selection. He said that they would choose the would-be participants personally. “Some of them are authors of successful projects, which passed through ASI or are being examined by it. We would like the mechanism of selection to become transparent, so that new members would be admitted on the recommendations of the old ones. We shall select participants in the forum from among some 400 people. They have already passed the preliminary selection and qualified for the finals of the contest,” Nikitin continued. “So, one out of five applicants is chosen,” Putin said.

According to Nikitin, “some would-be participants will be selected in the regions on the basis of projects and initiatives.” “Those people should think not only about their own wellbeing, but also about the wellbeing of the country, when they implement their projects. The will include, in the first place, regional industrialists and regional business people, as well as leaders of the social sphere and the education sector,” he said.

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