During the meeting, they discussed issues of cooperation in the following areas: the establishment of joint ventures, trade activation, activation of air travel and tourism.
On 21 November 2016, Smolny held a meeting of the Chairman of the Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg Evgeny Grigoriev and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in the Russian Federation, Mr. Grum Abay Teshome
The meeting was also attended by: Alexander Vakhmistrov, the Honorary Consul of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Zapevalov, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry in St. Petersburg, Andrey Mushkarev, the Chairman of the Committee for Tourism Development of St. Petersburg, Arbi Abubakarov, the Deputy Chairman of the Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg, the Head of Department of Foreign Economic Cooperation, the Head of Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Department of the Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg, Taras Ogilko, and Yury Burchakov, the Senior Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of St. Petersburg.
During the meeting, they discussed issues of cooperation in the following areas: the establishment of joint ventures, trade activation, activation of air travel and tourism. Suggestions were made on the creation of a "road map" and the consultations between the representatives of the business. Regarding tourism sphere, Andrey Mushkarev stated that there are all the possibilities and the market for the development of mutual tourism in Ethiopia and St. Petersburg.
Special attention was paid to the continuation of cooperation in the sphere of railway design and construction. In 2010, the Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University (PGUPS) conducted examination of the draft rail network in Ethiopia. At the same time, they consulted and trained Ethiopian engineers, builders and designers. They developed concept stations schemes for the first line of the Addis Ababa - Djibouti. The same year, 19 Ethiopian students were enrolled in the specialized graduate program of PGUPS. At the meeting, it was decided to study the matter and to continue cooperation.
The parties agreed to consider implementation of various production projects in the territory of Ethiopia and agreed to continue dialogue in the line of the Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg.