U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appealed for Russia to invest its oil riches in the dampened U.S. economy, during the first Kremlin visit by a senior U.S. official following the accession of President Dmitry Medvedev.
Paulson, in his first visit to Russia since being appointed by U.S. President George W. Bush two years ago, told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a meeting at the White House, "We very much welcome your investment."
Dmitry Medvedev said that strengthening Russia's ties with other former Soviet republics would be a priority of his presidency, presenting one of the first planks of his foreign policy after taking office two weeks ago, The Moscow Times reports:
"Medvedev spoke following a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, his first stop on his first foreign trip as president. He will wrap up the trip in Beijing over the weekend."
Following the inauguration of a new president in South Korea, Russia had its own presidential elections on March 2, with Dmitry Medvedev anointed as Vladimir Putin's successor, Asia Times writes:
In North Korea, it has been reported, the grooming of a new leader is already underway. Nevertheless, the dynamics of relations between Russia and the two Koreas will depend not so much on personalities but on the joint efforts of the sides.
Relations between Russia and Korea in the 20th century were saturated with hopes, victories and disappointments. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) flared up precisely because of control over Korea and ended - for Russia - with the loss of South Sakhalin and ultimately the headache of the (First) Russian Revolution. The revenge of August 1945 and the joint Soviet-American occupation of Korea incurred many political problems.
Once again, Russia is in the crosshairs of U.S. policy. Rather that an intentionally Russia-wary position, it results from a 21st-century form of "benign neglect" by Washington -- a term last widely used to describe the attitude of U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally regarding the plight of the dollar in 1971, The Moscow Times reports:
Russia is in good company. Central Bank head Sergei Ignatyev and his colleagues are the unintended victim of Washington's economic policy, along with the European Central Bank, China and most of the world, which has long relied on the United States for the key currency anchor of the international financial system in the form of a relatively stable dollar.
President Vladimir Putin arrived with a message of support, when he became the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since Stalin, pledging to stand by the country's nuclear program and co-signing a declaration with a thinly veiled warning against U.S. interference, The Moscow Times writes:
But while maintaining in an interview with Iranian television that Moscow would honor its commitment to build a nuclear power site near the southwestern port city of Bushehr, Putin refused to set a date for the start of operations at the facility.
The government said that it had sent a long-awaited bill to the State Duma that defines strategic industries and restricts direct foreign investment in them -- two years after President Vladimir Putin called for a clear tightening of the rules, The Moscow Times reports:
The bill, however, does not cover the lucrative energy sector, where foreign companies have had to yield to varied means of government pressure and hand over control of major oil and gas projects to state companies.\
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov earlier this week ordered that the bill be sent to the Duma, the government announced.
"We think this can be a major positive here, and that is clarification," Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said of the U.S. business community's attitude toward the legislation.
Russian president Vladimir Putin called for a radical overhaul of the world’s financial and trade institutions to reflect the growing economic power of emerging market countries – including Russia, The Financial Times reports:
Mr Putin said the world needed to create a new international financial architecture to replace an existing model that had become “archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy”.
A top official seen as a potential Kremlin favorite to succeed President Vladimir Putin next year pledged Saturday that Russia would transform itself into a high-technology and industrial powerhouse and enter the top five world economies by 2020, International Business Times:
In his opening address at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia was taking steps to diversify an economy heavily dependent on oil and gas exports and further open it to investment.
Russia, the world's 10th largest economy, plans to be one of the five biggest by 2020, according to the First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Bloomberg reports:
Russia will join the ranks of the world's leading market economies as a full-fledged democracy within a dozen years, Ivanov told global business leaders at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today. ``What will Russia be like in 2020? It'll be a democratic state based on the rule of law,'' said Ivanov, who may be a candidate for president after Vladimir Putin's final term ends next year. Per capita gross domestic product will reach $30,000 by 2020 and at least half of Russians will be ``middle class.''
Gazprom said that its proved and probable reserves, excluding its oil arm, were valued at $182.5 billion, The Moscow Times reports:
Gazprom's reserves amounted to 20.7 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 659 million tons of gas condensate and 291 million tons of oil at the end of 2006, as audited by DeGolyer & MacNaughton using Society of Petroleum Engineers standards, Gazprom said in a statement.
Proven reserves climbed 12 percent to 18.2 trillion cubic meters from the previous year, while proven and probable reserves changed little, Interfax reported Monday, citing a Gazprom eurobond prospectus.
Russia will not allow indebted state companies to default, Economy Minister German Gref told reporters, Reuters reports:
"We have all the possibilities not to allow defaults of state controlled companies," Gref told reporters. Russian state controlled companies such as Gazprom (GAZP.MM) and Rosneft (ROSN.MM) have been borrowing heavily abroad to go on a spending spree to expand their businesses.
