Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has welcomed plans from Finnish mobile giant Nokia to become a founding member of the Russian Skolkovo high-tech research hub.
Nokia President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said at a meeting with Medvedev that the company "would be glad to see its representative in the governing bodies of the project."
"The company would like to build a center at Skolkovo, which will coordinate research projects in software development," he said.
Kallasvuo said the center would be an exhibition of joint achievements by Nokia and leading Russian universities, as well as an opportunity to display technology that the company will develop with its partners.
"These are very good plans, I will be glad if they come to life," Medvedev said. "We will most certainly be glad to see you among the formal cofounders and governing bodies."
He said that Nokia's products were very popular on the Russian market and the country was grateful for the company's contribution to the national economy.
"Nokia is big tax contributor to the Russian budget. As a result of the popularity of the brand and the development of the market, the company contributes around 12 billion rubles ($386 million) of tax to the Russian budget annually," Medvedev said.
The Skolkovo research hub, dubbed Russia's Silicon Valley, is being built from scratch 20 km outside of Moscow. Research at the center will focus on five priority spheres: energy, information technologies, communication, biomedical research and nuclear technologies.
GORKI, June 3 (RIA Novosti)
