Russia fully paid the external debt off the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC) in size of $118, 4 mln. About this is reported in the press-release of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation (RF).

State Corporation “Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)”, Russian Union of Lumbermen and Lumber Exporters and German company MAN Ferrostaal AG announced about creation of joint investment engineering company Rusles-Engineering for construction timber industry enterprises on a turn-key basis. The newly made company has already one project in the Komi Republic. According to the experts, the similar structure will be in demand, as logging segment requires radical updating of capacities.

Russia possesses a quarter of world’s reserves of wood, but at the same time its share in world’s volume of production does not exceed 5%. As analysts consider, it mismatches the possibilities of the Russian Federation to get the income from wood comparable to oil and gas extraction. So, the currency gain of Russian timber industry complex is six times less, than, for example, Canada, while its volume of a world’s reserve of wood is 1,5 times less than Russian one.

Lipetsk SEZ is the second zone of industrial type in Russia that already began to work. The first was opened in Tatarstan in November, 2007. But already in 2008, declared in the Russian government, will start operating two technical-implementation zones – in Dubne and Tomsk. Active work is started in seven tourist-recreation SEZ. Thus, in the Altai Territory such zone will be also opened in 2008. In addition, on February, 1 the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade will give the start to the competition on collection of projects for creation of port SEZ

In 1990s International Monetary Fund gave to the Russian government advice about pursuing a rigid financial policy and fight against inflation. These advice were sometimes carried out, sometimes were not, and the fund depending on the contentment with the state of affairs in Russia gave or didn’t give credits. The Parisian and London clubs were begged to restructure the large foreign debt inherited since Soviet times. It was clear that the Russian financial position is completely defined by kind credit will of the West because the Russian authorities needed currency, and it was extremely not enough. Therefore, from the very beginning of presidency, Vladimir Putin had to provide rising of gold-value reserves of the Central Bank, to provide enough currency in Russia. The circumstance that extremely helped was that in 2000 the world prices for oil were at quite decent level, at least twice above observed in 1998, in the year of the Russian currency-financial crisis.

Commodity turnover of Russia and India is extremely small now, stated the Prime Minister of Russia Victor Zubkov, speaking on the investment forum in India. In 2007 commodity turnover grew by 30% (data of Federal Customs Service (FSC)), less than 1% of the Russian foreign trade turnover falls to India. Large potential for the Indian investors, Zubkov is sure, is in the innovative sphere, in the infrastructure, pharmaceutics. Nanotechnologies and Olympic Games in Sochi do not leave a forward-looking investor indifferent, he considers. The aim is $10 bln of commodity turnover by 2010, the Prime Minister said.

Fast industrial growth in 2007 is caused not only by demand growth, but the competitiveness of enterprises working in Russia has increased. For a year industrial production growth, according to Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting (CMASTF), made 6,4 % (according to Goskomstat (Federal State Statistics Service) – 6,3 % for 11 months, 3,9 % for 2006). Manufacturing activities became the motive power because of the improved indicators practically in all branches, the economist of CMASTF Vladimir Salnikov explained at the report presentation in United Nations Information centre.

Next year the Russian economic zones can attract 70 investors who will bring over RUR 20 bln ($800 mln). About such plans told Mikhail Mishustin, the head of the Federal Agency for Management of Special Economic Zones (RusSEZ). And already by 2010 the number of residents can increase up to 150. On extended meeting RusSEZ summed up agency work for 2007. As Mikhail Mishustin marked, this year all attention was paid to construction of infrastructure objects in six Russian zones. We remind that these are four zones of technical and implementation type and two – industrial and production type. “Construction of 150 objects was conducted at once, the cost of concluded contracts totaled RUR 12 bln”, Mr. Mishustin marked.

GDP growth of the Russian Federation (RF) in 2007, according to the last estimations, totaled 7,8% against 7,4% in 2006, declared Aleksey Kudrin, Minister of Finance of RF, speaking at the forum “Russia”, organized by Troika Dialog in Moscow. According to him, such results allow saying that in the nearest three years the economy of Russia grows 6,5-7% rates a year.

Sales of new foreign cars in Russia grew by 61%, up to 1,65 mln items for 2007. During December Korean Hyundai Motor Company was able to return to top three of the market leaders, compensating the failure at the beginning of the year. Among the first thirty makes only French Citroen showed slumping sales – the sole among them that did not control the sale of cars in Russia.