This year the Forum has been devoted to the "Automotive industry post-crisis: new reality, new opportunities".

At the beginning of the plenary session Anna Manvelova, General Director, ITEMF Expo and Michael Johannes, Vice-President, Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH,  Brand Manager Automechanika, addressed the Forum participants with welcoming speeches. 

Tadzio Schilling, AEB CEO, moderator of the plenary session, expressed his gratitude to the participants, who met together to share their views and opinions on how the automotive industry has been surviving in the times of uncertainty especially exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and how they thought it would develop in the nearest future and which effective measures are to be taken in order to mitigate the repercussions of the mentioned crisis.

During the session,  Stefan Mecha, Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Rus and Alexey Kalitsev, Managing Director at Hyundai Motor Rus, shared their views over the efficiency and impact of the state support measures during the crisis.

Jerome Saigot, Executive Director, Haval Motor Rus, told about his company experience in localizing the manufacturing of several automotive product ranges in Russia, in particular about the conclusion of the special investment contract (SPIC) with the Ministry of Industry and Trade by the end of 2020.

Vyacheslav Zubarev, the President of ROAD Association, highlighted the peculiarities and challenges the Russian dealers and final consumers had to cope with and how the initiated demand support measures help them face these challenges.

Jan Aichinger, Managing Director, MAN Truck and Bus as well as the Chairman of the AEB Commercial Vehicles Committee, and Simone Montagna, CEO of Scania Rus, discussed the difficulties the industry (and its European side) has faced, and which measures were considered crucial to “land softly” and how to identify the post-crisis growth points.

In general, the future prospects of the post-crisis market development touched the presentations of all spekers of the planery session. Stefan Teuchert, CEO and President, BMW Group Russia, and Nicolas Maure, President of AVTOVAZ, devoted their speeched to this burning issues. 

The speakers also touched upon the development fields for working out the innovative automotive transport solutions in terms of green initiative’s promotion in the realms of the Russia’s automotive industry.

Speaking about the competitiveness at the international market and promotion of the local products abroad, the participants moved to local automotive vehicles and components’ exports development. Pavel Burlachenko, Export Support Director in Automotive & Railway Industries Department, devoted his presentation to this topic.

Finally, the moderator Tadzio Schilling marked out the following key ideas of the panel:

- State support measures: efficiency during the crisis and necessity after it;

- An open dialogue between the government and the industry is a must;

- Innovations in Russian automotive industry: key focus of both businesses (foreign and Russian) and public authorities 

- For export purposes focus on localization should be continuous – thus, the requirements should be economically justified and transparent:

- The public authorities should continue supporting export-oriented automotive businesses as it stimulates the higher competitiveness of the Russian automotive products at the international market.

The 1st day of the Forum continued with two more sessions: an analytical one, devoted to the global automotive sector and automotive components industry analysis, and innovations in automotive industry: path to future.

The analytical session was moderated by Tatiana Kofanova, Automotive Group Leader in Russia and CIS, Deloitte  Consulting, with participation of Nils Poel, Trade and Market Affairs Manager, CLEPA, Sergey Udalov, Managing Director, Avtostat Agency, Tatiana Arabadji, Director, NAPI (Marketing Automobile Agency, and others.

Another session, devoted to the issues of alternative fuel transport, cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles and robotics was moderated by Kirill Zhanaydarov, Head of Transport Infrastructure Projects, Skolkovo Foundation. Among the participants were Artem Fokin, Business Development Director, Autonomous Vehicles in Yandex, Andrey Vasilevskiy, CEO, Sber Automotive Technologies, Evgeniy Meilikhov, Head of Development, Working Group on research and development, NTI Avtonet Roadmap / NP “GLONASS” and others.