Development of cooperation with Finland

A meeting of the Subgroup for Development of Cooperation between the Nizhny Novgorod region and the Ministry of Employment and Economic Development of Finland was held via videoconferencing on 15 December. The event was co-chaired by Sampsa Nissinen, Deputy Director General of Innovations and Corporate Financing Department of the Ministry of Employment and Economic Development of the Republic of Finland and Olga Guseva, Director of the Department for External Relations of the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Welcoming remarks were also made by the Russian Foreign Ministry Representative in Nizhny Novgorod Sergey Malov. Various areas of cooperation, including education, were discussed. Minister of Education, Science and Youth Policy of the Nizhny Novgorod region Sergey Zlobin addressed the participants of the Subgroup meeting.

Alexander Bedny, UNN Vice-Rector for International Affairs, made a presentation of Lobachevsky University, its scientific and educational potential and its achievements in the development of international relations, highlighting the experience of cooperation with Finnish partners. During the discussion, the Finnish side expressed its interest in further development of cooperation in the field of education, export of educational services, academic exchange of students and development of joint school programmes.

Traditionally, meetings of the joint working group on trade and economic cooperation between the Nizhny Novgorod region and Finland are held once a year alternately in Finland and in Nizhny Novgorod. The first meeting of the joint working group was held in Helsinki in December 1997. The second meeting was held in Nizhny Novgorod, in September 1998. Meetings of the Joint Working Group took place in Nizhny Novgorod in 2005, 2007 and 2009, and in Helsinki in 2006, 2008 and 2011. The Subgroup is co-chaired from the Russian side by Olga Guseva, Director of the Department for External Relations of the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and from the Finnish side by Sampsa Nissinen, Deputy Director General of Innovations and Corporate Financing Department of the Ministry of Employment and Economic Development of Finland.