Pulp & paper companies prepared amendments to the draft Forest Policy at the Adam Smith Conference in Vienna

Vienna, December 21. Austria’s capital hosted 17th Adam Smith Conference “Pulp & Paper in Russia and CIS” in early December. Following the results of it, a workgroup will prepare a Resolution of the conference and send it to Russian officials. The document will contain detailed actions that should be included in the draft Forest Policy, according to the business community, as well as protective tariff measures that should foster competitiveness of Russian companies in the course of country’s accession to WTO.

Forest Policy draft elaborated by Federal Forest Service hardly gives any attention to business interests, as it does not contain state measures to ameliorate business environment and establish up-to-date further processing capacities in Russia, Arkhangelsk pulpmill GR director Natalya Pinyagina said at the conference.

Pinyagina noticed that the forest industry which is a single system does not have centralized management, as it is diffused among various services. The draft policy does not set clear rules.

Natalya Pinyagina illustrated her words with the state of forest roads construction. In Russia, 1,000 ha of forest are served with 1.2 km of roads, which is 40 times less than in Europe. Despite numerous government regulations, the matter of road classification is not resolved. Pinyagina mentioned that two years ago the government allocated funds for forest roads construction for the first time in 15 years, but even this was complicated with numerous conditions, mainly co-financing from the regional budget.

Instruments of state control are needed along with state financing of forest roads and interest rate concessions for crediting upgrades and new facility projects, Pinyagina added.

Following the results of the conference, a workgroup will prepare a Resolution that will be sent to Russian officials, namely Ministry for Natural Resources, Federal Forest Service, Ministry for Industry and Trade and some others.