Companies from 15 countries attending forestry exhibition in Siberia.

KRASNOYARSK, November 16 (Itar-Tass) - Executives of 150 companies
from 15 countries are attending the international fair Tekhnodrev Siberia
2010 in the East-Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
This is the 4th specialized exhibition here. The companies from
Austria, Germany, Italy, China, Ukraine, Finland, Russia, and other
countries are showcasing their machinery and equipment for lumbering,
woodworking and manufacturing of furniture.
Sergei Sobolev, the director general of the Krasnoyarsk Fair
exhibition company, "we come across the phrase 'for the first time' with
every step we make here."
The interest towards the fair is to big this year that the organizers
even had to expand the floor space allocated for it originally by 30%.
"For the first time, the exhibition of large-size specialized
technologies here occupies a record big floor in front of the exhibition
center's building," Sobolev said. "Displayed there are new samples of
Russian and foreign special vehicles for lumbering, transshipment and
transporting and the visitors have an opportunity to test every sample on
their own."
A wide assortment of equipment for sawing and finishing wood is
exhibited by the companies Hekotek, KAMI, SAB, Ustunkarli, and others.
In the covered yard of the exhibition center, the visitors will see
the process of production of biofuel, or the fuel pellets. It is in this
part of Russia biofuel is viewed as the ecologically cleanest and safest
one for man.
These technologies started gaining popularity in the Krasnoyarsk
region but fairly recently. Now the visitors of the exhibition will have
an opportunity to watch the production process with their own eyes and at
the same time to learn about all the advantages of fuel pellets.
The exhibitors have also put up for the display the timber protection
means, including the antiseptic and fireproof dopes for lumber, wooden
thermal baths, and saunas.
"The business itinerary of this fair is quite expansive, too," Sobolev
said adding that it has been drafted by officials of the Krasnoyarsk
territory government, the territorial association of forestry developers
and the National Bioenergy Association.
The organizers have included a number of roundtables.
One of them highlights the problems of forestry certification in
Russia, the fighting with illegal felling, FSC certification, and the
changes that have occurred in lumber trading in Europe and the U.S.
A roundtable on the role of bioenergy in ensuring the needs for energy
in Siberia will also be quite topical, as it will bring energy efficiency
and energy saving into spotlight.

.Organizing committee to discuss final phase of Russia-France Year.

PARIS, November 16 (Itar-Tass) - A bilateral Russian-French organizing
committee that monitors the activity under the Russia-France Year meets in
Paris Tuesday to discuss the program of the final phase of the Year.
Leading the Russian delegation at the meeting is the chief of the
Kremlin administration staff, Sergei Naryshkin.
More than 350 events of the national and regional level have been held
in France as part of the Year's program, Nicolas Chibaeff, a coordinator
on the French side told Itar-Tass.
They have drawn a combined audience of more than 2 million people.
The organizers list among the landmark events of the year the unique
exposition 'The Holy Rus' that was held in the Louvre Museum this year and
an exhibition of Picasso's paintings that was taken to Moscow and St
Petersburg.
The Russia of nowadays was shown to the visitors in all of its
multifarious appearance at the Grand Palais in Paris in June. It was the
first such display in France over a period of half a century.
In the fall, La Comedie Francaise theater went on a tour of Russian
cities, and prior to it a group of French writers made a tour aboard a
"literature express" from Moscow to Vladivostok.
The French spectators, in their turn, had an opportunity to
familiarize themselves with "the unknown Siberia". A festival under this
title opened in Lyons November 15 and its program includes artistic
displays, film shows, and a performance of the Moscow-based Nations
Theater based on the stories of the remarkable Russian writer of the 1950'
s and 1960's, Vassily Shukshin.
"The Unknown Siberia is one of the brightest projects of the
reciprocal Russia-France Year," Sergei Naryshkin said Monday as he opened
the festival. He added that it has "a really tightly packed program."
The fruits of activity of the Russian and French creative
personalities reflect the generally high level of cooperation between the
two countries, Naryshkin said.


.Slovenia's President Danilo Turk to arrive in Russia on 3-day visit.

MOSCOW, November 16 (Itar-Tass) - Slovenia's President Danilo Turk
arrives on a three-day official visit to Russia Tuesday. He will be
accompanied by a big delegation including his country's ministers of
foreign affairs, economics, finance, education, healthcare, and more than
a hundred business executives.
The span and size of the delegation is broadly viewed here as a
testimony to the seriousness of intentions to develop relations with
Russia.
Wednesday, November 17, Danilo Turk will have summit talks in the
Kremlin with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The two presidents will
discuss joint economic projects, humanitarian relations, and relationship
between Russia and the EU.
On the eve of his visit to Moscow, Danilo Turk said Slovenia is a
persistent supporter of a stronger partnership between Moscow and
Brussels, greater regional cooperation, and business relationship.
He described the dialogue between Russia and the European community as
"a good but still insufficiently developed one."
"It's important for the EU to realize that Russia is its foreign
policy priority number one," Turk said in an exclusive interview with
Itar-Tass.
He stressed Slovenia's perfect geopolitical position, saying it had
formed over the course of history.
"The country is situated at the crossroads of big countries, big
cultures and big geopolitical entities and in this sense it can maintain
good relationships with anyone," Turk said.
He said he felt it full well when he represented Slovenia on the UN
Security Council two years ago. He could see then that other nations
viewed Slovenia as a welcome and desirable partner, since it does not have
any selfish interests and no one is afraid of it
For the Slovene government, relations between the European Union and
Russia have special significance, and it views them from the strategic
angle of view.
Europe has two crucial issues - relations between the EU and the U.S.,
on the one hand, and relations between the EU and Russia, on the other
hand.
"We should assess the situation in the sphere correctly, Danilo Turk
said. "We are proud of the fact we won the European Commission's mandate
in June 2008 for holding talks on new strategic partnership between the EU
and Russia."
"This partnership has top-priority importance and not a single
emerging issue can have greater importance than these relationships," he
said.
-0-kle