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Russia was chosen to be the focal point of the forum, and one of the ways this was reflected was through the setting up of a Russian exhibition on the sidelines of the event.

Although rather small, it did boast some very intriguing stands, including one from the snappily named Flora-L, which was promoting biohumus fertilizer. Alexander Filimonov, who was manning the stand, explained this type of fertilizer was among the most potent in the world.

"All soils have a special part, which is known as the humus. This component contains special elements which define fertility, and this is produced by special bacteria," he told Arab News.

"It takes potentially hundreds of years to create just one centimeter of this soil."

Filimonov added that his company's biohumus fertilizer was based on a special technology developed in the USA.

"We use special kinds of worms to produce biohumus, but still we can only produce 4,000 tons of it a year because there are many factors we need to consider, not least that production is ultimately a natural process."
 
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Moving on from fertile soil, the exhibition also had a stand dedicated to Bashkortostan, whose president was recently interviewed by Arab News on the sidelines of the Jeddah Economic Forum. The Russian republic is also proud of its honey, claiming it to be the best in the world.

"This is because we have the Bashkir bee, which is unique and produces the Bashkir honey," said Rinat Yantilin, who was manning the stand and works at Bashkortostan presidential office's foreign and interregional department.

"There is a special hole in the trees where the bees keep their hive and from where they go to gather pollen from the nearby wildflowers."

Yantilin also had on display wild lime honey, which resembled a curd with wax in it and tasted amazing. He added that bees were fed honey in winter, which added to the quality of the region's produce. Another famous honey from Russia also sampled was Burzyan honey, made from bees of the same name. All were of the highest quality.

Sorry Saudi Arabia, but Russia really does produce the best honey in the world.
 
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Moving away from the exhibition, there was one Saudi company whose stand stuck out like a sore thumb. While other companies represented at the forum were obviously catering toward high-end clientele, Basamh Trading Company was promoting its home-produced brand of pasta. The friendly stand attendant told me the product was doing really well in the year that it had been on the market and was confident of further success.

Certainly, if more companies followed suit, it would reduce the burgeoning reliance on imports in the country.