15.06.2016

On 15 June 2016, the AEB North-Western Regional Committee and the International Institute of Marketing and Social Research “Gfk-Rus” announced in St. Petersburg the results of the 9^th AEB Annual Survey “Strategies and Prospects for European companies in Russia”, which was conducted in March–April 2016.

This annual Survey is aimed at evaluating the country’s investment climate and analysing the current position and the comfort level of European business on the Russian market. It became a good tradition to annually present the results of the survey both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg.

The participants were welcomed by Hugo Brouwer, Deputy Consul of the General Consulate of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg. The opening remarks were delivered by Andreas Bitzi, Chairman of the AEB North-Western Regional Committee. Alexander Demidov, Managing Director, GfK-Rus, presented the results of this year survey. Although most of the macroeconomic indicators in Russia are expected to get worse, the negative growth rate is falling. Companies this year seem more optimistic about expected turnover and profits. In the medium (3–5 years) and long (6–10 years) term companies expect sustainable economic growth in Russia. The main factors that are adversely affecting the Russian economy are oil prices, sanctions towards Russia, and Russian sanctions towards the EU, U.S. and Turkey.

The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.

The event was kindly hosted and supported by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg.

For further details, please refer to the press-release in English and Russian.

The results of the AEB Survey are avaliable here. 

We would like to thank the companies who contributed to the survey with their responses and hope that more of our members will be interested in participating in this project in the future.

Photo: Alexander Demidov, Managing Director, Gfk-Rus