Connecting your interests to the wider region

With its shared hanseatic heritage and influences, the Baltic Sea Region, member of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, plays host to overlapping organizations that aim at consolidating regional ties between: parliaments the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, universities: Baltic University program, technological clusters ScanBalt Bio Region, trade unions Baltic Sea Trade Union Network, tourism boards Baltic Sea Tourism Commission, environmental protection agencies Helsinski Commission - Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, chambers of commerce and trade such as the Baltic Sea Chambers of Commerce Organization, the Baltic Sea Forum and the Baltic Development Forum. This macroregion aims at integrating freight and transport systems through projects such as the TransBaltic co-financed by the EU Baltic Sea Programme and the Amber Coast Transport Initiative Project officially supported by a business association, the Baltic Sea States Sub Regional Cooperation. Security and defense concerns are regularly discussed at Estonia's top think tank, the International Center for Defense Studies and at the high-level Lennart Meri Conference. The region's excellent Internet infrastructure gave rise both to Skype as well as to notable cyberdefense institutions such as NATO's Center of Excellence against cyberterroism.

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Long governed by multinational empires that imparted a tradition of local and regional self-government, many central European countries today display linguistic, denominational and ethnic varieties within their borders. The Moravian-Silesian industrial region astrides present day Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Its declining heavy industries, subsequent high unemployment is giving way to strong business development of technological clusters around its main cities of Wroclaw, Ostrava and Katowice. Major political and business gatherings include the European Economic Congress in Katowice and the Krynica Economic Forum both in southern Poland, the European Forum Alpbach in Austria and the Black Sea Economic Forum. Further regional integration is encouraged by political groupings such as the Visegrad Group, EU sponsored business development initiatives like Centrope, US-based think tanks such as CEPA and funding opportunities for transregional projects procured through the Central European Initiative and the Central Europe Programme.

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The European Union (EU)'s engagement with the Caucasus and Central Asia is reflected through TRACECA the co-operation programme in the transport sector and INOGATE the energy co-operation programme between the EU, Turkey and post-Soviet states. Together they have formed the Baku Initiative, a policy forum between the EU and the littoral states of both the Black Sea and the Caspian aimed at developing regional transport and energy markets in the Caspian and Central Asia.

In 2006, the environmental Tehran Convention entered force the same year that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline connected the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields complex via Azerbaijan's Sangachal terminal to Turkey's Ceyhan distribution terminal.

EU Commission's Second Strategic Review of 2008 first defined the Southern Gas Corridor Initiative that has since spurned a lattice of agreements on competing pipelines projects (Nabucco, ITGI, TAP, WhiteStream). The Joint Declaration on the Southern Gas Corridor, signed in January 2011, reinforces the EU-Azerbaijan partnership on energy matters.

All Central Asian countries have ratified the Energy Charter Treaty, a multilateral instrument that strengthens the rule of law on energy issues and in which the legally-binding chapter on investment protection paves the way for a wide range of business development in the region.

Particularly Baku, with sufficient commercial momentum and business climate development, is poised to become the Singapore on the Caspian shores.

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The Keryx Group is a brokerage house in constant expansion on a regional basis. Two geographies where we see huge potential for building corporate partnerships are the Black Sea region where the Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum fosters stronger regional ties, and the Adriatic region where we are currently following the development of the commercial backbone in an area that was long synonymous with parcellisation and warfare. We are monitoring today efforts to privatize Croatian seaports and to develop Cargo 10, a new freight route that runs along the Corridor 10, which will divert commercial traffic away from the commercial ports on the Adriatic. Outside of Europe, we hold strong business ties in the Mexico City, Houston and California triangle especially in energy, construction, agribusiness and research facilities. We are also seeking to build long term relationships in Central Asia and in the "string of pearls" port cities of South-East Asia.

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