Free industrial zone to be created in Lipetsk Region

RUSSIA, Oct. 4. A free industrial zone will be created soon on the territory of the Lipetsk Region. The project is based on the Russian-Italian Indesit Company, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said here on Tuesday.

He attended an opening ceremony of the Logistics Centre of the Indesit International joint enterprises on the basis of the Lipetsk Metallurgical Complex.

According to Fradkov, the new centre will include a storehouse with a capacity of 2.5 million pieces of products. "Not only finished products, but also parts and units, to be used in production right here, in Russia, will be kept in the storehouse," Fradkov said. In his opinion the project "will promote the development of the free industrial zone and will give additional impetus to the development of the economic and social sphere of the Lipetsk Region."

Commenting on the products turned out by Indesit, Fradkov said: "Russians know well Italian washing machines and refrigerators, and they like them." The opening of a new storehouse is, on the one hand, an ordinary fact for such a big enterprises, but, on the other hand, it shows that the plans, outlined during the opening of the enterprise with the participation of the Russian President and the Italian Prime Minister, are being implemented in time. It is evidence of the fact that Russian-Italian cooperation develops effectively and manifests itself in the production sphere and on the market."

According to Oleg Korolyov, Governor of the Lipetsk Region, the Lipetsk industrial zone will be the largest in Europe by the production of household utensils.

The Lipetsk Region has already submitted an application to the Russian government for the creation of "a special economic zone of the industrial type," sources in the Lipetsk regional government told Itar-Tass. Later in October the results of the contest will show whether the plans of the regional administration will come true, Itar-Tass reported.