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Eastern Europe
March 31, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
is also a co-investor in a 19.5% stake in Russia’s state-controlled energy behemoth Rosneft.
“We hope that the decision to sell our subsidiary bank will help to unblock its offices and to renew its normal work,” Sberbank said in the statement.
Some analysts in Ukraine suggested that the sale is just a sleight of hand and that Sberbank’s unit will just be held temporarily by this consortium until relations improve. Gutseriev has his own
Russia turns its eyes and wealth to the Arctic
Vladimir Kozlov in Moscow
Plans are hotting up for the development of
the coldest reaches of the world, with the Rus- sian government announcing that it will spend RUB209bn (€3.4bn) over the next three years to boost the country’s Arctic regions, with state and commercial companies pledging billions more.
The 4th International Arctic Forum “Arctic: Terri- tory of Dialogue”, which runs in Arkhangelsk on March 29-30 and is due to be attended by Presi- dent Vladimir Putin, will focus on major issues of the region’s development, such as the creation of a transport infrastructure and the exploration and production of mineral resources.
Among the government’s priorities in the region are exploration of the Arctic continental shelf, where substantial energy reserves still lie un- tapped, support for indigenous communities, environmental monitoring, and raising of sunken nuclear vessels.
There are plans to create eight “supported devel- opment zones”, covering the country's far-flung
Russian banking empire centred around B&N Bank, which has swollen in size in the past year after a string of deals.
“Regardless of the Russian origins of the new investors in Ukrainian Sberbank, we believe Ukraine’s central bank will be glad to approve the deal, as the presence of banks with Russian state capital creates political and reputational risks for the regulator,” says Paraschiy.
Russia's remote Arctic regions are one of Moscow's key areas of future development.
Kola, Arkhangelsk, Nenets, Vorkuta, Yamalo- Nenets, Taimyr-Turukhansk, North Yakutia and Chukotka regions.
“In a broad sense, exploring the Arctic regions is aimed not only at extracting mineral resources, but also at ensuring full-fledged human activity in extremely cold climate and towns that are the state’s outposts,” Igor Orlov, governor of Arkhan- gelsk region, tells bne IntelliNews.
To implement that goal, there is a need for a transport and logistics infrastructure. “Work in that direction is already in progress,” Orlov says. “As a result, a coordination centre for sea freight for the entire Northeast Passage was created on the basis of the company Oboronlogistika.”
According to Orlov, projects for construction of a railway linking major industrial regions in Siberia and the Urals with ocean-access ports in Russia’s North West and a deep-water sea port in Arkhan- gelsk are currently under development, and a Chinese investor is interested in joining.