Tatarstan President: the WorldSkills competition is like the Olympic Games; I am confident that the prestige of vocational skills will increase

Today President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, attended the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) in the United Arab Emirates, where the 44th WorldSkills Competition is currently underway.

One of the main goals of the Tatarstan and Russian delegation's business trip to the Emirates is to adopt the host city's experience of preparing and staging the event in the build-up to WorldSkills Kazan 2019. 

"We've already checked the layout of the venue and we see that in terms of hosting the skills competition sites Kazan's main and temporary exhibition complexes comply with the tasks at hand. We are currently examining the requirements regarding the height of temporary facilities. Plus, many other details that we have seen today will be quite useful," the President explained. "At the moment we have here all Tatarstan officials who are responsible for each functional area, like security for example, which is basically one of the most important things at any event," he added.

Rustam Minnikhanov also explained that the WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017 OC representatives had agreed to offer their consultations on every issue related to the preparation of WorldSkills Kazan 2019. And especially regarding the process of equipping the competition sites. "I'm grateful to the industries that support this project. As an UAE representative has mentioned, the most difficult part is the technical one. It is required that the equipment and infrastructure meet the WorldSkills standards and requirements. We need to start working on these issues in advance," the Tatarstan President said.

As Rustam Minnikhanov said, a lot of efforts are invested in Tatarstan for the preparation of future competitors for WorldSkills Kazan 2019. "Nowadays the Russian government places a priority on vocational skills training and the same is true for our republic. During the republican skills competition we saw with our own eyes that young people and manufacturers are very much interested in vocational skills. Because the most challenging problem for any company is to hire highly qualified personnel. The WorldSkills Competition is like the Olympic Games; I'm confident that the prestige of vocational skills will increase," the Tatarstan President summed up. 

The 44th WorldSkills Competition takes place in Abu Dhabi on 14-19 October 2017 and it brings together more than 1,300 competitors.