Valdai Club

On June 15 at 15:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), a session of the Valdai Discussion Club titled “The New World Economy — Not Global, But Interconnected” will take place as part of the business programme of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2023. Featuring Andrey Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, the session will be held in Conference Hall G6 in Pavilion G of the Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will be open to all forum guests and will be broadcast on the Club’s website.

The world has been radically changed by the events of the early 2020s, including the pandemic and the military-political crisis in Europe, part of which is Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. The liberal-style globalisation that has developed since the 1980s is giving way to another form of relationship. The shift in weight and roles of East and West, North and South in the world economy, as well as gross political intervention and the economic war unleashed by the West against Russia, have led everyone to the understanding that there will be no return to a centralised world system.

Against this background, a radical reorganisation of almost all markets is taking place — from raw materials and consumer markets to technological and cultural ones: commodity and machine-building flows are being transformed; many states are urgently adapting to new suppliers; market shares are changing. The interconnection remains, but new forms and chains are being built, and this is the reason behind the topic of this year’s Valdai Club session.

The United States as the hegemon has failed to stop the process of diversification of ties, despite all its efforts at economic punishment. It is obvious that the world economy is not constrained by any restrictions: although sanctions are an obstacle to trade with Russia; they cannot stop it, an increasing list of goods is brought into the country through parallel imports, suppliers who have the opportunity to work with Russia are gaining a lot.

Business adapts to changes with the active support of the state. Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a recent meeting with members of Delovaya Rossiya, said that decisions on issues raised by businessmen “are made in the interests of the state, in the interests of the economy and the business community.”

The Valdai Club invites speakers from Russia, India, China, and Malaysia to reflect on the nature and scale of change, assess the impact of trends on the countries and regions they represent and their ties with Russia, and to present new areas and forms of joint work.

The participants in the Valdai Club session will discuss the following issues:

• How will the new economic system be built — still unified and interconnected, but not global in the previous sense?
• What are its opportunities and risks?
• Which countries and regions will be the main beneficiaries in this situation, and who will suffer losses?

In accordance with tradition, Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, will open the Valdai session at SPIEF 2023.

Speakers:

• Andrey Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
• Arvind Gupta, head and co-founder of the Digital India Foundation
• John Gong, Professor, Vice President for Research and Strategic Studies, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE)
• Benedict Weerasena, scientific director of the Bait al-Amanah think tank, Malaysia

Moderator:

• Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

Working languages: Russian, English.

Venue: Expoforum, Congress Centre, Conference Hall G6, Petersburg Highway, 64/1, St. Petersburg

Access to the event is possible for SPIEF 2023 participants and journalists accredited at the Forum.

A link to the live broadcast of the session will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, Twitter, Telegram and Dzen.