June 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin touted the resilience of the economy at yesterday’s opening of the “Russian Davos” in St. Petersburg. BP Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Royal Dutch Shell executives and 2,000 guests heard little of nearby protests against what Premier Vladimir Putin called corporate greed.

The start of the annual St. Petersburg International Forum was marked by renewed commitment from the U.S. and the European Union to Russia’s 16-year pursuit of World Trade Organization membership and praise for President Dmitry Medvedev’s handling of the country’s worst financial crisis in more than a decade.

Absent from the event was billionaire Oleg Deripaska, summoned by Putin to nearby Pikalyovo to be rebuked for not paying wages at his cement plant there since March. The closure of the factory and two others in the town of 23,000 left hundreds out of work, sparking protests that shut a highway and prompted Putin to stop off on his way back from Finland.

“I wanted to bring here the authors of this tragedy, whose greed and ambition have made thousands of people hostage to this situation,” Putin said on state television. “Where is the social responsibility of business?”

The protests in Pikalyovo, which started on June 2, have been the most visible industrial action in Russia since the Siberian miners’ strike of 1998, when oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel and Boris Yeltsin’s government was forced to default on $40 billion of domestic debt and devalue the ruble, wiping out the life savings of millions of people overnight.

Medvedev Address Today

Medvedev, who will give today’s keynote address on the “first lessons of the global crisis,” has made avoiding similar tension a key part of his anti-crisis program. His chief economic adviser, Arkady Dvorkovich, trumpeted the lack of “large-scale” social unrest in previewing the forum.

The president may repeat calls for the creation of a new global currency to rival the U.S. dollar, as he last did in a June 1 interview with CNBC.

The economy of Russia, the world’s largest energy supplier, is on the brink of recession for the first time since 1998 after shrinking 9.5 percent in the first three months of the year. Gross domestic product may drop as much as 8 percent this year after 10 years of annual growth of almost 7 percent, Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina said in an interview last month.

At the Bottom

Still, Russian officials and executives today preached recovery.

“We’ve reached the bottom of the economic crisis,” said German Gref, chief executive officer of OAO Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, and economy minister for most of Putin’s eight- year presidency. The contraction is slowing “sharply” and further decline is “unlikely,” he told reporters yesterday.

Russian stocks, which remain the world’s second-best performing equities this year after Peru, have soared as crude and other commodities gained on signs the worst of the global economic slowdown is over.

The MSCI Russia index is valued at 9.9 times estimated earnings, compared with 4.6 in February, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The shares are still cheaper than the average in developing countries, based on a ratio of about 15 times estimated profit for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Obama, WTO

Russia’s recovery, when it comes, will be aided by membership in the WTO, according to U.S. officials including Trade Representative Ronald Kirk and Ambassador John Beyrle. The largest economy outside the global commerce arbiter has been seeking admittance since 1993.

Chances are better than ever, now, though, with a new U.S. president, Barack Obama, promising to “restart” relations with Russia, said First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. The U.S. is “anxious” for Russia to join the WTO and may complete talks this year, Kirk told Shuvalov.

“We have the opportunity to make extraordinary progress in the next few months, if not by the end of the year,” Kirk told the conference.

Putin won’t attend this year’s forum, the 13th, ceding the platform to his protégé Medvedev. Putin bolstered the significance of the event three years ago, dismayed that domestic entrepreneurs and state officials held the biggest forums on investment in Russia abroad, mainly in London.

Russia’s premier business gathering, on the Gulf of Finland, attracted 10,000 people last year and produced $14.6 billion in deals, according to the Economy Ministry.

Four heads of state are scheduled to attend this year, as well as more than 2,000 executives and policy makers.

For Related News and Information: Russian economic statistics: ECST RU <GO> On Russia’s economy: TNI RUSSIA ECO BN <GO> Top stories about Russia: TNI RUS WWTOP <GO> On today’s top currency news: TOP FRX <GO> On Russia’s central bank: TNI RUSSIA CEN <GO> On the ruble basket’s movements: RUBLE <INDEX> GPO <GO> Top emerging-market stories: TOP EM <GO> Emerging-markets monitor: EMMV <GO> Stories on BRIC economies: TNI BRIC ECO <GO>

Last Updated: June 4, 2009 16:57 EDT