INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Nowadays regions themselves act as principals to important international contracts and compete with each other for special roles on a global scale.
The Yaroslavl Region, as well as its towns, has become involved in international cooperation chiefly to raise its competitive capacity in foreign markets and strengthen its national and international positions on the basis of its various potentialities of partnership with foreign countries, regions, organizations, enterprises and individuals.
The Yaroslavl Region has concluded 29 contracts on trade-and-economic and cultural cooperation with 14 foreign countries.
The strongest business and cultural relations have been established with such CIS countries as the Republic of Belarus, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghizia. Our major European partners are Germany and the UK as well as such Baltic countries as Lithuania, Estonia and Poland while in the Asian-Pacific region we cooperate with Vietnam and China.
In the future these friendly ties based on signed agreements and protocols will be broadened and strengthened.
Another important area of the Yaroslavl Region's international policy has been cooperation with international organizations within the framework of EU and EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) programs in the fields of economic, cultural and humanitarian relations. The main focus of cooperation with the European Union has been our participation in the ТАСIS projects. Since 1991 more than 20 projects in such fields as agriculture, food processing industry, manufacturing and education system have been realized.
We are in a constant contact with our foreign partners primarily through the RF Embassies and Consulates as well as through Federal Ministries Representatives and RF Chambers of Trade and Commerce located abroad.
The Yaroslavl Region has been very actively developing partnership relations with foreign twin cities. For example, with the help of the British Council and the UK Embassy Yaroslavl became the first Russian city to organize and launch the English-Russian Friendship House and in 2003 with the help of our French partners – the Yaroslavl-Poitiers Friendship House.
The Yaroslavl Region has also been hosting a very successful Russian-German partnership project, Hessen Land - Yaroslavl Region Bureau for Cooperation. The effectiveness of this cooperation has become a model for many Russian regions and German lands. The job of the local authorities in this work is to create the necessary conditions for a full-rights partnership.
The Yaroslavl Region has all the necessary potentialities for expanding international-interregional cooperation and strengthening the atmosphere of neighbourliness and partnership.