Some 50 Japan engineers to fix electricity supply of APEC summit

VLADIVOSTOK, March 2 (Itar-Tass) - About 50 Japanese engineers of
Marubeni Corporation will arrive in Vladivostok for fixing electric power supply for facilities of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's summit on the Russky Island. At present the company that in January 2011 officially opened its office in Vladivostok, is laying cable on the bottom of the Bosfor Vostochny strait, governor of the Primorsky Territory Sergei Darkin said at a meeting with Japanese Ambassador to Russia Masaharu Kono on Wednesday.
According to the governor, today Japan is one of the leading partners of the Primorsky Territory in the sphere of investment cooperation. So, trade turnover with Japan in 2010 increased 1.6 times and amounted to 649.8 million US dollars. Exports grew by 49 percent to 137.8 million US dollars. Imports grew 1.6 times to 511.9 million US dollars. As many as 20 offices of Japanese companies, among them - Mitsui, Sumitomo Corporation, Marubeni Corporation - are working in the Primorsky Territory.
Sergei Darkin said several successful joint investment projects have already been implemented. They are, in particular, the work of the Sakaiminato - Donghae - Vladivostok ferry line and a modern
timber-processing factory with Japanese investment in the north of the
Primorsky Territory. Mazda Corporation and the Renault-Nissan alliance are looking in the territory for grounds for opening car assembly plants.
A delegation of representatives of the Japanese business-club in
Moscow comprising 24 people with Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of Japan to Russia Masaharu Kono in the head arrived in Vladivostok on March 1. On the same day the signing of a memorandum on cooperation and agreement on scholarships between the Far Eastern Federal University and the Tokyo Boeki company was held. The Japanese company will annually allocate 600,000 roubles for the support of talented students of the Primorsky Territory. The scholarship will be paid to students for their outstanding achievements in studies and research work once a semester and will amount to 30,000 roubles. The agreement also provides for training of Russian students in major Japanese companies.
During the remaining two days of its travel in Primorye, the Japanese delegation will visit construction sites of the APEC summit on the Russky Island.
Over 40 large facilities are to be built for the 2012 APEC summit in Vladivostok, including roads, bridges, hotels, water and power supply facilities. The construction of the second mini thermal power plant "Tsentralnaya" (Central) for the supply of electricity to APEC facilities has been launched on Russky Island. In accordance with the special federal programme, the financing of the construction work on Russky Island in 2010 amounted to 29.3 billion roubles - 4.5 times more than in 2009 when the total value of the construction work was 6.5 billion roubles. The proposal put forward for Russia to hold the 2012 summit on Russky Island was confirmed at the end of the APEC Australia 2007 summit in Sydney. At a press conference in Sydney, governor of the Primorsky Territory Sergei Darkin estimated the cost of hosting the summit at 147.5 billion roubles.
The construction of infrastructure serving the summit, by Darkin experts' estimates, would aid economic development in the Russian Far East and would see more than a six-fold increase of the gross regional product by 2020. The total funding for the preparation of Vladivostok for the summit is 553 billion roubles. Most facilities under construction will be commissioned in 2011 and at the beginning of 2012. Some of them are very important from the ecological point of view. Thus, already in several months Vladivostok will get a full-scale centralized sewage water treatment system.