For the first time private gold mining permitted in former Soviet Union

Novoship shareholders to vote on extinguishing 6% of common shares

MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - Shareholders in Novorossiysk Shipping Company (RTS: NOMP) (Novoship, which is part of OJSC Sovcomflot), at a meeting on March 23, 2011, will vote on extinguishing 20,898,606 common shares, the company said in a statement.

The shareholder register closed on February 11.

Novoship's charter capital consists of 412,660,422 shares divided into 375,840,500 common shares and 36,819,922 preferred shares at a face value of one ruble each. Therefore, the company could extinguish 6% of its total common shares.

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Pharmstandard 2010 revenue rises 23.3%

11:25 15/02/2011

Pharmstandard, a leading Russian pharmaceuticals company, saw revenue grow by 23.3% in 2010 to 29.719 billion rubles ($1.007 billion) to IFRS, the company said on Tuesday.

Total sales of pharmaceutical products amounted to 29.089 billion rubles last year, a 24.3% increase compared with 2009. Sales of the company's products, third-party products excluded, increased by 11.5% to 19.229 billion rubles.

Revenue from medical equipment sales stood at 630 million rubles.

Export of the company's pharmaceutical products increased by 38.8% to 593 million rubles in 2010, from 427 million rubles in 2009.

Pharmstandard plans to increase exports to Afghanistan, Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti)

15.02.2011

Murmansk Seeks to Become the "Russian Stavanger"

Murmansk is ready to apply the experiences made by Stavanger, the Norwegian town which in the course of few years developed into a national petroleum capital. Last week, the regions signed two cooperation agreements.

In few decades, the petroleum resources in the North Sea transformed Stavanger from a small fishing town into a hub for oil and gas companies. Now it is one of the richest towns in the world, Murmansk Governor Dmitry Dmitriyenko says in a press release.

Last week, the governor signed two cooperation agreements with the Rogaland County, the region where Stavanger is located.

"I can say that we already now are doing much, which is based on this experience [of Stavanger], and a closer cooperation will allow us to solve many practical questions which appear in our everyday work", Governor Dmitriyenko said.

The agreements are based on a MOU signed last summer. It facilitates a closer business cooperation between Rogaland and Murmansk, especially within the field of oil and gas, County Governor Tom Tvedt says in a press release. The region’s activities in Murmansk are made also in close cooperation with Troms and Finnmark, the two northernmost Norwegian counties, he adds.

The Rogaland County from before has cooperation agreements with the two northern Russian territories of Arkhangelsk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Copyright 2010, Barents Observer. All rights reserved.

French Auto Giant Renault Wants to Leverage its Strategic Partnership With AvtoVAZ to Gain Significant Inroads Into the Country's Fast-Growing Auto Market

http://russiaprofile.org/business/32672.html

By Tai Adelaja Russia Profile 02/14/2011

With some good omens showing up in Russia's embattled auto-industry, many foreign automakers, led by the French Renault, have big plans about how to capitalize on newfound consumer confidence and a rebounding domestic economy. The partnership of Renault, Nissan and AvtoVAZ reaffirmed last week that it is on track to grab a 40 percent share of the auto market in Russia and the CIS by 2016, as domestic auto sales regain ground lost during the devastating global economic downturn.

The companies will together gain an eye-popping 40 percent market share if they can ramp up total production to 1.6 million vehicles per year, Bruno Ancelin, the CEO of Renault in Russia and the CIS, told journalists in Paris, Finmarket reported on Friday.

The French, Japanese and Russian automotive alliance operates a number of automotive plants in Togliatti, Moscow and St. Petersburg, which currently churn out 1.1 million vehicles per year. Ancelin, who replaced Christian Esteve as Renault’s CEO in September, said his company will be looking for other alliances as a way to boost capacity and meet the set production goals. "We may align with someone else, we are considering all options for partnership," Ancelin said, FinMarket reported. Nissan Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn first unveiled the ambitious plan in November, albeit predicating its success on the ability of the French-Japanese Alliance to raise its stake in AvtoVAZ to a controlling 50 percent. Ghosn predicted that Russia’s car market could reach four million units a year by 2015, from less than two million now, adding that Renault and Nissan would need to increase capacity in Russia to meet their goal of maintaining a 40 percent market share.

Renault paid $1 billion to acquire 25 percent of AvtoVAZ at the market’s peak in early 2008. The Renault-Nissan Alliance has also contributed equipment and proprietary technology to modernize AvtoVAZ’s Togliatti plant, after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threatened to dilute Renault’s stake unless it took part in a bail-out of Russia’s largest automaker. Patrick Pelata, Renault’s chief operating officer, told the Financial Times in September that he expected Russia to replace Germany as Europe’s largest car market “three, four or five years down the road,” and that his company aimed to hold on to its number one position there. Despite the French automaker losing $28.4 million in AvtoVAZ investments last year (according to Dominique Thorman, its chief financial officer), it nonetheless continues to explore the possibility of acquiring new shares in AvtoVAZ.

AvtoVAZ, which was revived last year on the back of the government's “Cash for Clunkers” program, is currently capable of producing over 900,000 cars a year, and Ancelin is sure that Russia's largest carmaker can increase annual production by 100,000 to 200,000 units. “With a small investment and optimization of production lines in the Togliatti factory, AvtoVAZ should be able to produce from one million to 1.1 million cars a year by 2016,” Ancelin said. Last year, AvtoVAZ produced about 545,500 cars, 85 percent more than in 2009, when a debilitating financial crisis ravaged the domestic auto-industry. AvtoVAZ hopes to produce 700,000 cars this year and increase annual production to 1.2 million vehicles by 2020. The company said that up to 70 percent of that number would be cars produced under the Lada brand.

With money from the government and technology from its partners, AvtoVAZ has been busy revamping its outdated production lines, with the French carmaker playing a key role. Ancelin said Renault-Nissan and AvtoVAZ plan to install all the necessary equipment at the Togliatti plant before the end of this year, after which they will start to test production on the new platform. The new production line would initially roll out cars under the Lada brand, followed later by Renault and Nissan models, he said.

The partners are also mulling over plans to kick-start the production of Lada Granta – a new, less expensive compact model of AvtoVAZ's Lada Kalina. With a price tag of $7,100 Lada Granta could become one of Europe's cheapest cars, analysts say. "Lada Granta can be sold in Russia and other CIS countries under the brand names of Renault and Nissan, but no decision has yet been made in that regard,” Ancelin said, Interfax reported. However, the partners said they would go ahead with the production of Renault and Nissan models if and when the Lada Granta hits the market.

Renault-Nissan, together with AvtoVAZ, announced plans last month to develop a Class C Lada, which will be based on the Nissan Almera Classic, and is expected to be brought to the market in 2015 to 2016, Vedomosti reported. Primorye Governor Sergei Darkin said last month that the Renault-Nissan-AvtoVAZ motor alliance is considering opening a vehicle-assembly factory in Russia's Far East, RIA Novosti reported. A delegation from the alliance has been examining existing production and manufacturing facilities, as well as infrastructure located in different cities in the area, Darkin said. As part of its expansion plans, the French carmaker will start producing the Renault Midlum Trucks at the Urals Cars and Motors plant starting in April, Alexander Kharlov, the minister of international and foreign economic relations of the Sverdlovsk region, said in December.

AvtoVAZ also announced plans in December to buy its smaller rival Izhavto, investing seven billion rubles ($228 million) in a deal to be financed with credit resources from the state-owned Sberbank. AvtoVAZ is looking to its partners – the Renault-Nissan alliance – to help with the project, in line with Moscow's drive to use foreign investors' know-how to revamp its auto industry. “Creating strategic relationships is key to speedier improvements in the country’s industry,” Chris Weafer, the chief strategist at UralSib, said in a recent opinion piece. “The Renault-Nissan project with Russia’s largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, is a good case in point. Russia wants to create more of these long-term strategic relationships via equity cross-holdings.”

Renault plans to independently produce up to seven models in Russia under its brand name by 2013, including its Stepway, Megane and Fluence lines, as well as the new Duster model, which is expected to hit the market next year. The French car giant has expanded production and introduced a new Sandero model at the former Moskvich plant, with an eye on doubling capacity to 160,000 cars per year by 2011. The plan, if successful, would make Russia the fourth largest car market for the automaker and enable it to seize a six percent market share. Russia is currently the company's ninth largest market after France, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK. Thanks largely to its popular Logan sedan and the new, stylish five-seater Sandero hatchback – both of which are being produced at the company's Moscow Avtoframos plant – Renault was able to make inroads into Russia's booming auto-market, garnering 5.1 market share with 96,500 cars sold last year.

Russia’s auto sales gained momentum in January, driven by considerable improvements in the economy and automakers’ dogged resolve to continue to issue car loans to entice prospective buyers. Car sales skyrocketed 72 percent in January, compared to the same period last year, and the Automobile Manufacturers Committee of the Association of European Businesses (AEB) is predicting that sales may grow 20 percent overall this year. About 127,600 new cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) were sold this January compared to 74,000 sold in January of 2010, according to AEB. More than 1.9 million vehicles were sold last year, an increase of 30 percent over the previous year, as the market slowly regained momentum.