On February 20, 2013, in Beijing, a traditional St. Petersburg culture and business mission finished. The programme included the following: cultural and educational seminars, round-table discussion on the topic of St. Petersburg and Beijing tourism attractiveness, an exposition “Contemporary St. Petersburg Art”, a classical dance recital “Russian Ballet Masterpieces”.
On February 20, 2013, in Beijing, a traditional St. Petersburg culture and business mission finished. The programme included the following: cultural and educational seminars, round-table discussion on the topic of St. Petersburg and Beijing tourism attractiveness, an exposition “Contemporary St. Petersburg Art”, a classical dance recital “Russian Ballet Masterpieces”.
St. Petersburg Government member, Chairman of St. Petersburg Committee for External Relations A. V. Prokhorenko says, ‘According to the decree of the President of Russia, 2012 is declared to be the Year of Russian Tourism in China, and 2013 – to be the Year of Chinese Tourism in the Russian Federation. St. Petersburg takes an important part in development of visa-free tourist exchange with China, as stated in the intergovernmental agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the PRC. According to the statistics, the number of Chinese visa-free groups visiting St. Petersburg, has grown 1,5 times and is growing every year. Talking about the number of tourist coming to St. Petersburg from different countries, China is in top 5. In 2011, more than 235 thousand Chinese tourist visited St. Petersburg. 7,5 thousand tourists from St. Petersburg visited China in 2011.
Having presented St. Petersburg in the capital of the People's Republic of China for the third time, one can say that our delegations are welcomed with a respect and a great interest in St. Petersburg`s culture and economic development. Our main partner in organizing missions to Beijing is the Russian Cultural Center, and our duty is to strengthen friendly relationship and to make the Russian culture more popular. Also, the programme of the mission includes a number of presentations of our city`s economic potential. China is St. Petersburg’s biggest trade partner: over the last five years our sales turnover increased 2,5 times. In 2012, China was number 1 in the list of St. Petersburg`s trade partners. The volume of external trade grew by 13,6% comparing to 2011 and was 7,7 billion USD, which included 188 million USD for export and 7,5 billion USD for import’.
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