February 19, 2013. An agreement on setting up a joint venture was signed in Japan on February 18 within the framework of a visit by a a group of Sverdlovsk Region officials headed by Governor Evgeny Kuivashev, the Governor’s Information Policies Department reports.

During the Governor’s meeting with the mayor of Kitakyushu, both parties expressed an interest in mutual cooperation. About fifty Japanese companies sent their representatives to the presentation on Sverdlovsk Region coordinated by the Russian delegates, and some of these representatives said they would like to have a private meeting with Kuivashev in order to find out more about the partnership options. Such was the case, for example, with Mishima Kosan and the Yaskawa Electric Corporation.

‘These companies are global leaders in their market segments. Mishima Kosan is particularly interesting to us in terms of transferring their high technologies into the metallurgical industry. We first networked at the Innoprom 2012 exhibition and reached preliminary agreements on cooperating within the framework of the Titanium Valley, our special economic zone. This would involve CC machines,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov, who is also in Japan at the moment.