Members of the Russian-American Business Council (RABC) representing leading Russian businessmen – met this Thursday at the “National” Hotel to meet with Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

The meeting was attended by the elite of the Russian business community, representing leading corporations in almost every branch of the country’s economy including industry, finance, aerospace and communication.

In his report, Sergey Lavrov positively evaluated the dynamics of U.S.-Russian economic and trade relations. He characterized this vector of Russia’s foreign policy as a priority and stressed the necessity for further cooperation between the two countries in this sphere. As a positive sign of growing mutual investment the Minister cited the purchase of two Russian plants by the American company Alcoa, a deal where EPA&P provided the legal assistance.

The Russian corporate establishment is strongly in favor of increasing cooperation between the Government and the business community in promoting Russia’s interests in the U.S. These issues have concerned Russian businessmen for some time now and having got the long-awaited approval from the country’s top officials, business leaders have decided to take practical steps in this direction in the near future.

In this light, Dimitry Afanasiev, Chairman of EPAM, and Ilya Levitov, Press-Secretary of the firm, are in the United States, visiting New York and Washington D.C., in order to develop a relevant vision of the current state of U.S.-Russian relations, to identify existing problems and understand their solutions.

They are meeting with Russia and CIS experts representing major American think-tanks.