On July 28 the governor of Rostov region Vladimir Chub met with Independent director of Bank Center-invest, ex-president of Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Welteke (Germany). Mr. Welteke also held business meetings with deputy plenipotentiary of President of the Russian Federation in South Federal District Mr. Pochinok and representatives of German company SIEMENS in the South of Russia.

Independent director guarantees the transparency of Bank activities to the customers, staff and shareholders of Bank Center-invest and provides taking independent decisions.

During the meetings the matters of cooperation of Rostov region, South of Russia and Germany were discussed. The following points were determined to be the main tasks of international partnership:

• New industrialization of enterprises of Don region;
• Development of SMEs;
• Development of financial mechanisms of international cooperation.

An important joint task of Administration of Rostov region and Bank Center-invest is producing an image of Rostov region, the image of investment attractive Russian region for the business community of Germany. Putting on the 2nd annual exhibition of German goods and services for small business of the South of Russia in May of 2006 will promote this task.

Let us remind you that the 1st exhibition “Germany-Russia: New growth of business. German goods, services and technologies for the entrepreneurs of the South of Russia” took place in June of 2005. Simultaneously with the exhibition there took place “Russian-Germanic day of SMEs financing in Rostov-on-Don” for the first time in the South of Russia. It was organized by Bank Center-invest and Administration of Rostov region with the support of program TRANSFORM of Ministry of Finance of Germany. Over 200 participants from Russia and Germany took part in this event.