VADIM GUSTOV, Governor of Leningrad Region

Today's Russia has a historical opportunity to considerably improve the effi-ciency of its entire economy. I can name some of the promising ideas that could become national economic projects that would put an end to the decline in production as well as stimulate industrial development in many regions of Russia.

One such project is Russia's participation in the 9th International Transport Corridor, which has already started. We have the opportunity to transform re-gions through which the Corridor will pass, that is, Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver, Voronezh, Moscow, Tula, Riazan and Rostov, along with Krasnodar District, Moscow and St. Petersburg, into key links in the chain of interna-tional trade. They will become part of a "commercial bridge" linking Western Europe with Russia and the world's most dynamically developing Asian-Pacific region.

The current freight turnover in Russian seaports is significantly lower than their maximum capacity. At the same time, the share of Russian transit freight passing through ports in Baltic countries is very large. Finland is actively vy-ing for its share of the transit of Russian petroleum products by developing its ports of Porvoo and Kotka. The situation demands that Russia's northwestern region become a leading international transport and technological junction. St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region have elaborated an interdepartmental pro-gramme called "Transport and Technological Support of Freight Transit through the coastal territories of the Gulf of Finland". Its main points lay at the basis of President Yeltsin's decree No. 554 of June 6, 1997.

Along with developing ports and terminal facilities, the programme will ensure freight transit services that meet the highest European standards. This in-volves construction and reconstruction of motorways and railroads, pipelines, river ports and waterways. State-of-the-art logistics systems will also be used at the terminals for receiving, processing and distributing cargo, as will be a number of information and analytical services for freight traffic.

It is clear that repayment terms for investments into such projects, first and foremost the future seaports at Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Batareinaia Bay, projects covered in this issue, are longer than the ones for commercial proj-ects. That is why the optimum funding pattern is based on attracting the re-sources of cargo carriers and using foreign bank credits, credits guaranteed by the Russian government and the authorities of Leningrad Region, as well as by drawing countries interested in cheaper cargo transit through Russian territory. There are numerous investment opportunities and all those interested in part-nership with us will receive the active and friendly support of the administra-tion of Leningrad Region.

We realize that we will face problems along the way. At the same time, however, we understand that the logic of our development forces us to unite our forces and go forward.

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