Russia needs investments to pursue energy-saving policy

Russia has broad opportunities to pursue energy-saving policy, but it needs huge investments and Western countries' assistance to do so. This conclusion was made by participants in the seminar on "Energy-Saving in Russia", which was held in Amsterdam. The seminar was organised by the Amsterdam centre for promoting foreign investments into the Russian economy, which was assisted by the Russian embassy and the Russian trade mission to the Netherlands. Among seminar participants were representatives of the economics ministry of the Netherlands and the management of the ING Bank, which is one of the country's largest banks, and a number of major companies. Alexander Khodakov, Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands, stressed that the country was a major economic partner of Russia. He noted that the Netherlands ranked fourth in the amount of investments in the Russian economy. Pointing to the need to overcome stereotypes, the ambassador called on the sides to strengthen the climate of trust between Russia and the Netherlands and between representatives of the two countries' companies. In their speeches at the seminar, managers of the Dutch companies working in Russia pointed out that the problem of energy-saving in this country presented good opportunities for foreign companies' activities. Among ways to ensure energy-saving they named, in particular, the use of the power of the wind and the sun, as well as other alternative sources of energy, the transition to more economic types of fuel, the use of garbage and other types of waste as fuel, and also higher efficiency in the use of energy resources. A representative of the Dutch company Gasuni mentioned his company's would-be strategic alliance with the Russian Gazprom concern which he called promising. Within the framework of this alliance, the sides will jointly work on the Russian market.

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