Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry of Trade, Food, and Services hosted a number of business meetings with top executives of Metro’s Moscow headquarters and heads of forty-five regional enterprises that deal in manufacturing of both foods and nonfood items and wholesale trade. The meeting was coordinated by Minister Vera Solovieva, who said that Sverdlovsk Region’s two Metro Cash & Carry stores had thirty-seven agreements with the local producers (including thirty contracts signed with plants and seven contracts signed with the wholesalers).

The Minister felt signing an agreement with Metro was a bit of a challenge, as many small- and medium-scale agricultural produce processors were unable to go through with the complicated contract-signing scheme Metro’s Moscow offices require.

In the course of individual meetings, Metro’s management discussed issues related to the range of products, prices, packaging, production volume and terms of the goods’ delivery. Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry of Trade, Food, and Services and Metro Cash & Carry agreed that further cooperation was both needed and desirable.