The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2025) was held from June 18 to 21. The event was attended by the CEO and founder of eXpress, co-founder Alexey Lyamin, eXpress executive director Artem Spinul, and marketing director Anna Lyamina. In addition to attending the business program, Andrey Vratsky spoke at two business events of the forum.
On June 19, Andrey Vratsky took part in the session “Investments in Innovations: Who Needs It, Why Is It So Expensive, and Who Will Pay?”. He spoke as a resident of the program "Openwork Bridge: Russia - Iran". The participants discussed how innovations can transform the economy into an ecosystem in which innovative ideas and technologies, through entrepreneurship and investment, are transformed into products, services and processes that contribute to accelerated economic growth and development of society. They tried to formulate answers to the questions: what do modern innovations require to meet public expectations in terms of their availability and cost? Are all innovations original and which of the participants in the investment process will pay twice? What effective innovation financing tools can Russian and international experience offer?
– There are enough countries in the world ready to cooperate with Russia, but they need to put forward a consolidated offer of the best Russian solutions. Only a comprehensive offer will be able to surpass the best global analogues in quality - and for this, cooperation between vendors is important. No company in Russia can stand alone against the best global solutions, no matter what position it occupies in the domestic market. At the moment, in one of the IT areas, a “battering ram” tandem has formed and is starting to move, followed by an ecosystem of medium-sized companies. After all, the technologies that will be quoted in the world will return to Russia at a qualitatively different level, - Andrey Vratsky shared his experience of working in the international export program.
On June 21, Andrey Vratsky also became a speaker at the IT breakfast within the SPIEF Maturity of the IT Industry: from Internal Victories to International Technological Cooperation, organized by the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation, the Russoft Association, the Digital Economy ANO, the Russian Association of Electronic Communications (RAEC) and the Technological Sovereignty Export Association. CEO eXpress suggested thinking about the format of political support for IT business in the international market from the state.
The participants discussed investments in IT, the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies, trends in digital platforms, overcoming the digital divide in the regions, measures to support ICT manufacturers and developers, as well as the export potential of Russian companies.
The key issues of the meeting were:
- the role of business and the state in training, retaining and developing qualified personnel for the digital and data economy;
- promising countries for the export of Russian IT solutions;
- tools for promoting IT products to new markets.
