From June 2 to June 4 Moscow was hosting the Russian Steel Summit, which was organized by Metal Bulletin in association with Eurasian Metals. There has never been a metallurgy forum of such a level in Russia before. The activity of the world steel-maker community exceeded all expectations. The conference hall of the Radisson Slavajnskaya Hotel was a gathering place for representatives of over 120 companies from almost 30 countries of the world. There were owners and top managers of all companies and major enterprises of the Russian steel industry. The high level of representation gave the Moscow meeting the genuine nature of a metallurgical summit.

TO THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE FIRST STEEL SUMMIT IN MOSCOW Dear ladies and gentlemen! On behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation I am welcoming You, participants of the First Steel Summit, which is being held in Moscow. The Russian economy has entered the period of a stable growth. A favorable investment climate is being created in the country. The Russian market is becoming more and more attractive to domestic and foreign investors. The steel industry and allied industries are now on the threshold of a large-scale modernization. Major investment projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars have been developed and are already being implemented. Contacts between leaders of the world’s largest steel companies are very important. They help Russian enterprises develop a closer interaction on the international level. In their turn, foreign companies get new opportunities for investments in the Russian economy. I would like to wish the participants of the First Steel Summit to have a productive work and also expand areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. Mikhail Kasyanov, Chairman of Government Russian Federation

Yuri Isaev Deputy Minister, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Russian Federation

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roviding access of Russian goods to foreign markets strategically directed at removing Russia’s discrimination regardless of terms of its admittance to WTO comes to timely warning, removing or moderating export restrictions. Joining WTO will permit to solve the following tasks.
1. Transfer of trade and economic relations to a modern, equal-right, stable and long-term economic and legal basis.
2. Removal of still persisting discriminatory treatment of the Russian export and improvement of access of competitive Russian export goods and services.
3. Russia’s access to the mechanism of settling trade disputes. This mechanism is sufficiently effective and plays an important preventive role by keeping trading partners from voluntary one-sided actions.
4. Possible acceptance of Russia as a full-fledged partner in forming international trading conditions.
As the experience shows, trade protection measures have been used lately not for making competition terms equal but, mainly, for protectionist purposes, such as fighting the undesirable import goods. Russia is against using trade protection measures as a means of struggling competitive Russian goods. Precisely because of this the country supports the initiative of the Steel Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development aimed at working out effective measures to straighten out the world steel trade situation, which is now prone to serious distortions due to the considerable world overproduction.
The international anti-dumping rules are to be perfected next. The Anti-Dumping Code of WTO was worked out with the purpose to stop dumping, which is undesirable, though quite legal trade practice. It is necessary to improve it so as to rule out a possibility of using such measures against fair competition. 

Andrei Deineko Head of Metallurgy Department, Ministry of Industry, Sciences and Technology, Russian Federation

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or a long time already the world market of steel products has become international: about the same price level, quality requirements and such trends as restructuring, privatization, asset consolidation may be observed everywhere. In our opinion, the situation in the steel industry has been determined by the following main factors: large volumes of ineffective excess capacities, overproduction of steel products, existence of many protective measures against their import shipments. The deficit of investment resources as well as problems connected with restructuring of economies in a number of countries also have had much influence.
In 2002 the world steel market remained the scene of continuous increases in production: the total growth amounted to 6.4% against 2001. It is estimated that to achieve a long-term balance between supply and demand for steel products it is necessary to reduce the annual steel melting by 10 % or by about 90 million tons in the 2002 figures.
It seems only legitimate to mention Russia’s role and place in this market. The country accounts for 7% of the world steel production (being 4th in the world). In 2002 55% of the total steel rolled stock production were imported. In other words, it amounted to 26 million tons or about 10% of the world trade volume (first in the world). The year’s results show that the "effect of the default" of 1998 that caused the production growth between 1999 and 2001 completely disappeared. The cyclical fluctuations in the world metal market have become main factors of metallurgy development. It would be right to state that the effect of the Russian metallurgy in the world market is in full swing now.