NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA
Russian President Vladimir Putin may hold a long-awaited meeting with Russian businessmen as early as this Friday, NG reports. At first the meeting was scheduled for May 19, then postponed until June 16 and then July 2. Various business groups are preparing to submit their proposals for the country's economic development to the president. According to Garegin Tosunyan, head of the Association of Russian Banks, representatives of his group will take part in the meeting. The bankers want to raise the urgent issue of the banking crisis and discuss the banking sector's development in general, the newspaper writes. In this context, they are likely to touch upon the banking strategy being worked out by the government and the Central Bank. The bankers' questions will to a large extent depend on a government decision on the banking strategy, which is due on Thursday.
Little is known about what the oligarchs' trade union, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, wants to tell Vladimir Putin. The list of issues is constantly being updated. Obviously, the Yukos case will not be touched upon, as the president has already said enough about the matter.
Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia), an organisation representing medium and small business, intends to raise the question of correcting the country's economic policy, the organisation's co-chairman, Boris Titov told NG. "Today, we should maximally reduce dependence on raw materials exports by stimulating investment in manufacturing, first of all, in small and medium enterprises," he said. "The state should take on more functions in this respect." He went on to state that the state should also create a system to stimulate economic development. "This is also true about improving the financial system, both state and corporate, reducing interest rates on loans and creating special instruments for growth," he told the paper. "First of all, there should be investment agencies, funds of the support for small business and many other similar measures."
VEDOMOSTI
Direct foreign investment in developed countries has fallen for the third successive year, Vedomosti reports. On the contrary, investment in emerging markets last year grew by six times. According to the OECD, in this respect Russia was among developed countries, and investment hit a decade low.
Last year, investment in developed countries dropped by 28% to $192 billion. Direct investment in Canada plummeted by 69%, in European countries by 23%, including in Germany by 64% and in Great Britain by 47%, according to the OECD. Direct foreign investment in Russia last year fell to $1 billion. The OECD used the information of the Russian Central Bank, which explained its position by "non-standard dynamics" because of "some incomplete transactions related to the mergers and takeovers of domestic companies," Vedomosti writes.
The Russian Federal Statistics Service, however, has different data. According to it, direct investment in the country last year soared by 70% to $6.8 billion, the newspaper points out.
KOMMERSANT
President of the LUKoil company Vagit Alekperov announced in Nizhny Novgorod that his company intended to begin producing oil in Iraq in 2005. On Monday power in Iraq was handed over to the provisional government controlled by the U.S., so LUKoil may start talks on a return to Iraq in the near future, Kommersant writes.
The company has shown great interest in only one Iraqi project, the development of the West Qurna 2 field, the largest undeveloped field in the country (estimated reserves of 3 billion tonnes of oil, and estimated cost to develop the field $6 billion). In a bid to return the contract to develop West Qurna to LUKoil (annulled under Saddam Hussein), Mr Alekperov visited Baghdad on March 9 and signed a memorandum of mutual understanding and cooperation with the Iraqi oil minister. On June 22, Moscow hosted the first session of the joint technical committee of LUKoil and the Iraqi oil ministry.
Evidently, the Russian company hopes that the U.S.-controlled government will give it back the contract to develop the most promising field in the country, Kommersant writes.
IZVESTIA
Over the last two years, Russia has constantly been in the top ten most popular group tourist destinations, Izvestia reports. Demand for trips inside the country is growing by approximately 30% every year, although prices for hotels and vacation homes keep rising and the quality of service does not always correspond to them.
According to official statistics, the number of foreign tourists visiting Russia is growing steadily. Last year, the country received eight million foreigners who came for pleasure, rather than business. This year the Russian Union of Tourism forecasts a further increase of 10%. This is a fairly high figure, but the results of 2000-2001, when the tourist inflow soared by 30-50% is unlikely to be repeated.
"We have to reject at least half of the applications from abroad, because there is nowhere to accommodate foreign tourists," says Alexei Zhegalov, general director of the VIT-Inform company. "Until modern hotels are built in the regions, no increase in the figure can be expected."
This is the reason why European tourists are ever less inclined to go to Russia, while more and more guests from the Orient are arriving in the country. In the first five months of this year, the number of Chinese tourists visiting the Maritime Territory grew by 20,000 people against the same period last year. If a trip from Harbin to Europe costs Chinese tourists about $2,000, a journey to the Russian Far East costs mere $300, Izvestia writes.
