Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved the extension of an existing steel market access deal with Russia, widening it to cover two boron-alloyed flat products. As a result, for 2003, EU import quotas of 20,000 tonnes are to be opened for alloyed quarto plates, rising to 20,500 tonnes next year, while quotas for 95,000 tonnes of alloyed cold rolled and coated sheets will be opened for 2003, rising to 97,375 next year.…

BY MARK ROWE
UZBEKISTAN has been at the forefront of international AML efforts in the central Asia region, a spokesman for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told the Money Laundering Bulletin. Uzbekistan has the most advanced AML legislation and apparatus of all the former Soviet Central Asia and has signed more than 20 bilateral and multilateral agreements on cooperation in fighting illicit drug trafficking with its Central Asian neighbours, as well as with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, according to the International Money Laundering Information Network (IMOLIN), (whose contributing members include the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering, the United Nations and the World Customs Organisation).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union must not only build additional electricity interconnection capacity between its own Member States, but also with countries to the south in north Africa and to the east in eastern Europe, the latest EU heads of government meeting in Brussels has concluded.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HIGH level meeting involving the European Union’s (EU) most senior energy official and Russia’s vice-prime minister has kick-started moves to interconnect the EU and Russian power grids, leading to a final decision on the technical means by 2007.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RUSSIAN iron pellet maker Karelsky Okatysh is likely to receive a US$60 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to refinance short-term indebtedness and improve the standard of its machinery.

The money would pay for the “maintenance, modernisation and upgrade (increased efficiency)” of existing plant, said an EBRD note, which added that the debt relief would help the restructuring of Karelsky.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BONDUELLE is combining Euro 15 million from the EBRD with its own money to build a Euro 41 million plant producing 60,000 tonnes of fresh packaged vegetables a year, in Krasnodar, southwest Russia.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA has called on Thailand to cut import tariffs on non-ferrous and ferrous metals to help boost trade between the two countries. Alexei Kudrin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance said that if tariffs were lowered, Russia would increase imports, particularly of non-ferrous metals, steel and iron, which constitute the lion’s share of Thai imports from Russia.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN timber company Ilim Pulp plans to build a US$50m timber processing plant in the northern Arkhangelsk region of the country, with a projected annual output of up to 700,000 cubic meters of processed timber annually. The company expects to prepare the construction project for the new plant and decide on an exact location by the end of the year.…

BY MARK ROWE
SIBNEFT, Russia’s sixth largest oil producer, has opened a subsidiary in St. Petersburg with the aim of seizing a significant share of the city’s retail-gasoline market. The move is also expected to enable Sibneft to use its refinery capacity to secure a larger stake in the local wholesale petroleum-products sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SHARP public spat over the Kyoto Protocol has soured relations between the European Union’s (EU) environment Commissioner Margot Wallström and energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. The social democrat Swede criticised her Spanish conservative colleague in an undiplomatic briefing to journalists in Brussels, following de Palacio’s comments that the EU might have to reconsider supporting Kyoto, given Russia’s reluctance to ratify it.…