France To Aid Russia To Revive Its Beef Animal Husbandry

A news conference National Reserve Bank (NRB) President Aleksander Lebedev and Andrei Zhuravlev, President of the Inter-regional Fund for Development of Beef Animal Husbandry, have held in France was devoted to an outlook for reviving Russia's beef animal husbandry, the Fund's press service reported Tuesday. The Russian agriculture ministry has resolved to bring the beef cattle population up to 2 million within ten years. The Russian and French premiers have agreed to elaborate a programme for restoring the required number of beef cattle in Russia. The NRB management is going to take part in the project. Mr Lebedev reported on 23 million euros the Bank is expected to allocate for the purpose in 2002. Messrs Lebedev and Zhuravlev said their French colleagues had reiterated their interest in joining hands to work out the above programme.