T

he Second Moscow Metals Summit was held in the Russian capital from May 31 to June 2. It was organized by Metal Bulletin in association with Eurasian Metals.
Welcoming its delegates Eurasian Metals’ editor-in-chief Yevgeny Shashkov stressed that this Moscow Forum was more representative than the previous one. This year the Russian business was represented by practically all major companies of the steel and non-ferrous metallurgies, pipe and metallurgical engineering industries. There were more producers of raw material resources as well as metal production materials, including suppliers of refractories, ferroalloys and electrodes.

Yevgeny Shashkov and Peter Gaskell

It should be noted that the Moscow Forum attracted more attention on the part of world business and, particularly, such well-known companies as Arcelor, Danieli, LNM group, U.S. Steel, Nippon Steel, Sumitomo Corp., POSCO, Voest-Alpine as well as commercial banks (Standard Bank, EBRD, Dresdner Bank AG, KBC Bank, ABN Amro), audit companies and rating agencies (PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Standard & Poor’s).
Russia’s neighbors from the CIS were also more active this year. They were represented by such companies as Ukraine’s Zaporozhstal, Azovstal, Novo-Kramatorsky Machine-Building Plant, Donbass’ Industrial Union as well as by Kazakhstan’s Ispat-Karmet and TNK KazRom.
In two days about 40 speakers addressed the Summit. The intensive program of its sessions did not prevent participants from holding discussions. The atmosphere was also friendly and relaxed during breaks and receptions arranged for the Summit participants by Standard Bank and Russian Steel Consortium.
Participants often expressed, both in private and from the podium, their satisfaction with the quality of the Moscow Forum’s organizational side and its results. In their words, the Summit provided them with a lot of valuable firsthand information and they managed to establish quite useful business contacts for their companies.