TEXTILE INDUSTRY: RUSSIA AND FRANCE INSTITUTIONALIZE THEIR COOPERATION The French textile machinery has been a partner of the Russian textile industry for many years. After several seminars already held in Russia, UCMTF the French association of textile machinery manufacturers, organized in October 2014, a technological forum in Moscow with the support of the Russian textile association, SOYUZLEGPROM. The leaders of the two organizations, Mr. Serguei RASBRODIN, President of SOYUZLEGPROM, Mr. Christian Guinet and Mrs. Evelyne Cholet, Vice-President international and Secretary General of UCMTF, have been thinking for a while that a new form of institutionalized cooperation should be open. The discussions have led to the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the objectives: - to strengthen the ties between the two industries on a long term basis - to exchange information on the industries, regarding in particular their needs to develop themselves and find the right ways to do it - to organize joint activities, in particular on the occasion of exhibitions, forum, conferences… - to develop modern forms of training for their employees - to meet regularly to make this cooperation alive. The signature took place on April 21, 2015 during LEGPROMFORUM 2015 in Moscow. LEGPROMFORUM is a major event grouping representatives of the Government, Heads of Regions and public sector organizations, the scientific community and the Russian textile companies, with the objective to deliberate on the strategy for the development of the Russian light industry, more particularly textiles, for the next decade. The signature is particularly important as Russia has decided to modernize its textile industry and to produce more of its needs for its national market and import less of these consumer goods and as France is the 6th exporter of textile machinery in the world with state- of- the- art specialized machinery for both traditional and technical textiles.