Why France?

From Peugeot to Kuhn Group to Leroy Merlin, companies from France make up a large piece of Russia’s business fabric. Russian consumers purchase cars from Peugeot, Citroen and Renault manufactured here; they buy groceries from Auchan and home goods from its Leroy Merlin stores; and farmers use equipment from Kuhn Group to harvest Russian fields, to give just three examples. In fact, there are a number of companies whose Russian activities we describe in this special supplement — including L'Oreal, Accor Group, Vinci Concessions, Apsys Group, Beckmann N’Thepe, Saint-Gobain, Onduline SA, Schneider Electric, Alstom, EDF and Decathlon.

For the first time in our country supplement magazines, you can view the extent of French business activity by federal district via a specially designed map. You also can see the concentrations of various business sectors, as well as population, gross regional product, and figures for agriculture, industry and services. Plus, there is a list of all of the French companies in each district.

Partnerships between French and Russian companies, as well as cooperation between the governments of the two countries, are likely to increase. In our interview with France’s ambassador to Russia, Jean de Gliniasty said the volume of trade between France and Russia was $22.6 billion in 2010. “These results are inspiring, but I think that they could be improved upon,” he added.

To answer the question “why France?” and to explain why a magazine dedicated to French-Russian business is of interest, these numbers and names should suffice. But read on to see and learn more about what the French are doing in Russia.