A
s Alexey Mechkov, the Ambassa-
dor of Russia in France, said to
the Rossiiskaia gazeta newspa-
per in August 2018, bilateral trade
increased by 155 % in 2017 to reach six-
teen billion euros.
‘But the potential of
our two countries is much greater. We
are continuing to work with France in
high technology, space and nuclear
energy.’
When Muriel Pénicaud, who was then
French Ambassador for International
Investment and CEO of Business
France, visited Moscow also in April
2017, she highlighted the activity of
French companies in Russia and bila-
teral economic cooperation projects.
Today, eighty-six Russian companies
are operating in France, employing
around four thousand five hundred
people. One hundred and eight jobs
were created thanks to Russian
investments in France in 2016. High
technology, hotels & restaurants and
tourism are the most attractive sec-
tors for Russian investors. In parallel,
said Muriel Pénicaud,
‘we are seeing
a great number of investments in
other fields, such as agri-food, the
digital economy, financial services
and IT’.
This is especially true,
because Russian companies often
use France as a hub for exporting to
Europe and Africa to internationalize
their activity.
Certain regions, such as Île-de-
France and Provence-Alpes Côte-
d’Azur, are especially benefitting
from Russian investments. During
the fourth meeting of the Russia
country-group in Paris on 10 October
2017, Dmitry Plakhotnyuk, the head
of the economic service of the
Russian Embassy in France, said that
the number of Russian tourists on
the Côte d’Azur in the summer of
2017 was 21 % higher than that of
2016, enabling shops in Nice to
record a 47 % growth in Russian
expenditure. These are significant
figures. The city of Nice has now
three hundred and nineteen compa-
nies that are headed by people from
Russia, according to figures publis-
hed by the Chamber of Commerce
and Industry of the Alpes-Maritimes
department.
During the meeting of the Franco-
Russian Economic, Financial,
Industrial and Trade Council (CEFIC)
in March 2017, the department of
Val-d’Oise signed a memorandum of
understanding with Technopark
Skolkovo that defines the outlines of
their cooperation in the field of inno-
vation. Skolkovo is the largest
research and development centre in
Russia and the largest start-up incu-
bator there. The city has already
organized two prospecting missions
in France in 2017. One of the priori-
ties in the field of innovation is to
develop cooperation between the
centres of excellence of French
regions and innovative regional
Russian clusters. A roadmap that
defined bilateral projects was signed
by the main stakeholders in 2014 and
an updated version is being drafted.
Russian successes in France
There are many examples of succes-
ses of Russian companies in France.
Among them are SuperOx, the Russian
superconductor specialist, which
chose to set up its European head offi-
ce near Marseille, Dr Web, a Russian
antivirus software company, which
opened a sales office in Strasbourg
and Datadvance, a Russian company
that develops data analysis and multi-
disciplinary optimization software,
which opened its European centre in
Toulouse in the framework of its part-
nership with Airbus. Another example
is the Russian Railway Company (RJD),
which acquired 75 % of the shares of
the industrial logistics company
GEFCO, a former subsidiary of the PSA
Group.
Another successful company is the
Dellos Group, a Moscow restaurant
company, which wanted to consoli-
date its presence in France with its
Pouchkine (Pushkin) brand; two
cafés have already opened in the
Printemps department store on the
Boulevard Haussmann and on the
boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris,
while a restaurant will be opened on
the Place de la Madeleine this year.
The company plans to create seventy
jobs and invest 15 million euros in
this project.
‘This new concept has
generated a great deal of interest.
We have opened two ‘Pouchkinette’
cafés, one at Orly airport and one in
a shopping centre in Versailles,
whose revenues really surprised me.
I did not think that there was such a
potential demand in France’
, said
Andrei Dellos, the founder of the
Café Pouchkine in France, to the
economic newspaper
Vedomosti
in
April 2017.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund
(RDIF) has made many investments
in France since June 2016. La Caisse
des dépôts (French state investment
fund) and this Russian investment
fund co-invested 250 million euros in
the company Arc, a worldwide leader
in the culinary arts and glassware, as
was announced in the magazine
Challenges
on 21 September 2016.
Since then, this partnership, which is
more and more active, has been dis-
cussing investments in agri-food and
energy efficiency.
37
Russia - France
Economic ties between France and Russia are strong. French companies are continuing to invest in
Russia and Russian investments in France are increasing.
Russian investments
in France are growing
