Conference Of Stability Pact For South East Europe To Meet In Bucharest

The regional conference of representatives of the donor countries and the member-states of the Stability Pact for South East Europe will take place in the Romanian capital on October 25-26. Its organisers include the World Bank, the European Commission and the government of Romania. The task of the conference is to support the programmes for the economic reconstruction and development of the states in South East Europe which were adopted two years ago after NATO bombings of Yugoslavia. As RIA Novosti was told by the head of the Russian delegation at the coming conference, Vladimir Zamorov, Russia's concrete aid to the countries of the region in 1999-2001 amounted to about half a billion US dollars. According to him, Moscow pays a priority attention to Yugoslavia which suffered during the armed conflict, the many-year sanctions and the blockade. Russia was practically the only country which supplied Yugoslavia with energy sources and other basic goods during the most complicated period for it. That was in fact a large-scale humanitarian aid to the population, said Zamorov. "We are interested in tenders for Yugoslavia through international organisations," he pointed out. The long-term investment projects, in which Russia intends to take part, include the restoration of the oil refinery in Novy Sad, modernisation of the copper smelting industry, transport communications, the Djerdap-1 Hydroelectric Station and so on. The Russian diplomat also spoke of a big project for expanding the gas pipeline in the Romanian territory which makes it possible to considerably increase the deliveries of natural gas both to Romania and to the third countries. Mutually important bilateral trade and economic agreements are being implemented or are planned to start being carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and in other Balkan countries.