Japan wishes to participate in laying down Siberia-Far East oil pipeline

Japan hopes that the joint construction of an oil pipeline from Siberia to the Far East will become one of the directions in Russo-Japanese economic cooperation. This was disclosed on Friday by Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.

"At the present moment, we are working on the details of the project," he said in the course of the press-conference in Tokyo.

According to him, both parties are discussing the possibility to include this project in the economic cooperation plan of actions, which, in the opinion of Tokyo, will be adopted in the course of the forthcoming visit to Russia in January 2003 by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Thus, according to the Japanese Nihon Keizai newspaper, by participating in the project the Japanese Government hopes to receive concessions from the oil resources of the Siberian region. The newspaper has the information that the oil pipeline will connect the oilfield near the Baikal lake with Russia's Far Eastern region.

By means of credits and investment programs, Japan will provide several billion dollars for the construction of the oil pipeline, Nihon Keizai reported.