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The head of the Government of Karelia Sergey Katanandov has taken part in the conference on cooperation in the wood complex, which has passed in Moscow in the showroom "Sokolniki" on March, 1.
Perhaps all interested parties of Russia and Finland participated in the discussion of problems of the timber industry complex: Russian and Finnish prime ministers Mikhail Kasianov and Paavo Lipponen, heads of the regions of Russia, Russian and Finnish businessmen working in the wood complex.
The discussion was concentrated on three key themes: maintenance of safety of forestry, development of forest products trade, attraction of investments in the wood industry.
As M.Kasianov has declared, in cooperation with Finland Russia "will emphasize on construction of wood-processing enterprises in our country" for attraction of the Finnish investments.
The potential of the Russian-Finnish interaction in the field of forestry is very high, the prime-minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen has noted in turn.
"Russia, - he has emphasized, - has approximately one fourth of the world wood reserves, and the largest woodworking companies of Europe possessing leading high technologies are located in Finland". Finland, Mr. Lipponen has noted, is interested in the opportunities of investing in this sphere in Russia.
Now Russia and Finland are preparing investment projects in the sphere of wood-processing for more than 1.8 billion dollars. In particular, there are three projects of construction of pulp-and-paper combines in Russia under development.
As they have informed in the press-service of the Ministry of Economics and Development referring to the data of the State Committee on Statistics of the Russian Federation, by the end of September 2001 total amounts of the Finnish investments in the sphere of timber, woodworking and pulp and paper industry of Russia have made $79 million, of which about 66 million are direct investments.
The participants of the forum have spoken that Russia should not be only the supplier of raw material for the wood-processing industries of other countries, and that one of priorities of the Russian-Finnish interaction should become the increase of volumes of investments of Finland in the Russian wood complex. These investments should be directed first of all on the improvement of the structure of the Russian export of production of the wood-processing industry.
In turn, the Russian Government has declared readiness to consider the measures of stimulation of investments for creation of wood-processing manufactures in Russia.
As a result, the Heads of the Governments of Russia and Finland have agreed about creation of special working group on development of cooperation of he two countries in the sphere of wood industry.
Andrey Raev
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