Novye Izvestia (Moscow) - June 15, 2006

RBC's traditional business forum devoted to the upcoming G8 summit in St. Petersburg took place in Stockholm, Sweden on June 7-11. Participants of the conference say energy security may turn into re-development of Siberia and the Far East by Russia. Swedish buffets, Swedish bar walls and Swedish families are not what Sweden is all about. As Peter Elam Hakansson, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of East Capital, mentioned at the conference, Sweden also represents $12bn in investment on the Russian stock market. "Sweden is the talk of the town in our country. At first it was an example of socialism, now it's an example of capitalism," RBC's General Director Yury Rovensky stated, opening the forum. "Sweden has become one of the main business partners of Russia over the past years," he added.

RBC hosts two business conferences per year. Traditionally, their cultural part is as busy as the business one. In between debates over the ruble's future, the upcoming IPOs, forecasts for the Russian stock market and foreign investment, the forum participants managed to grab a cocktail from iced glasses in a well-known Ice Bar, taste the Nobel menu in the Grand Hotel (the one where the Nobel Prize winners celebrate) and even go fishing (lawyer Pavel Astakhov appeared to be the luckiest one as he ended up with a 6-kilogram pike).

As far as the business part of the conference was concerned, top Russian businessmen and officials from Russian ministries and departments flew all the way to Stockholm to participate in it. Among the guests were Head of the Federal Financial Markets Service Oleg Vyugin, State Duma Deputy Sergei Glazyev, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank Bella Zlatkis, General Director of the Metropol Investment Financial Company Mechislav Sheshelovsky, General Director of Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange Alexander Potemkin, President of the Russian Financial Corporation Bank Andrei Nechaev and many other important persons.

Energy security was the main issue on the agenda of the forum. According to Yuri Isakov, Special Envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry for G8 Affairs, Russia will invest around $300bn in various energy projects in the next several years. "The implementation of such historical projects requires interaction between the government and businesses," Mr. Isakov emphasized. "This may actually turn into a re-development of Siberia and the Far East."

Alexander Potemkin, General Director of Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, sounded optimistic when speaking about the future too. "Buying Russian stocks is fashionable worldwide now," he said. Foreign investors account for 15-20% of turnover on the MICEX exchange at present. Mr. Potemkin considers greater transparency of Russian companies to be one of the main reasons for the growing demand for them.

Russian businesses would be even more efficient if our businessmen would specialize in a certain area instead of dispersing their resources, noted Sergei Bezdelov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Center Development. "In Russia, everybody wants to do everything all at once, thinking wrongly that universality means professionalism. This opinion is one of the main barriers for the development of a market economy in our country."

Obviously, we will see ruble growth to a "fair" level, stated Oleg Vyugin, Head of the Federal Financial Markets Service . However, he refrained from making any forecasts regarding what the exchange rate was going to be. "Only the real market can show this, when the Bank of Russia is not interfering with trade." But we are not quite ready for the real market and the "floating" ruble rate yet, he added. According to him, switching to the "floating" rate means higher economic risks and changes to economic policies, in particular, a reconsideration of the government's role in the economy.