France’s trade mission UBIFRANCE officially opened in Yekaterinburg recently. This is the organization’s third Russian office after the ones in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

UBIFRANCE is a state-run organization in charge of industrial and commercial issues.

The decision to set up an office in Yekaterinburg was taken in 2010. According to the French officials, this decision was actually influenced by considerations of the Urals’ economic potential. For one, Sverdlovsk Region and France’s trade turnover reached $780m last year, which was 73% better than a year earlier. France is now the region’s fourth, rather than eighth, most important trade partner.