OREANDA-NEWS. June 30, 2010. The EBRD inaugurated its Siberian office in Krasnoyarsk, bringing to six the number of its regional offices in Russia and underlining the Bank’s long-term commitment developing business in the country’s regions so as to get closer to local clients, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

Apart from its central office in Moscow, the EBRD now has regional offices in Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Rostov-on-the-Don, Samara, Saint-Petersburg and Vladivostok.

Today’s opening took place in the presence of six visiting members of the EBRD Board of Directors, as well as the Bank’s Managing Director for Russia, Natalia Khanjenkova.

An EBRD Board mission arrived in Russia on a nine-day visit last Saturday as part of a regular series of consultations aimed at enabling Board Directors to obtain up to date information on developments in what is the Bank’s largest country of operation, accounting for over a third of all EBRD investments.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mrs. Khanjenkova stressed the logic of the EBRD’s regional drive, pointing out that 90 percent of the 2.4 billion Euros which the Bank invested in Russia in 2009 was for projects outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. She also paid tribute to the dynamism of Siberia, calling it a model for the rest of Russia.

The EBRD has so far committed 300 million Euros to the Siberian Federal District in projects covering a wide range of activities -- from banking to power generation and district heating, as well as several natural resources and agribusiness transactions.

The opening of this office shows that we want to do much more to realise Siberia’s full potential, support the diversification of the economy and promote programmes such as energy efficiency, Mrs. Khanjenkova told the assembled audience, which included local authorities and business community representatives.

Earlier, Mrs. Khanjenkova and the EBRD Board Directors met the governor of Krasnoyarsk region, Lev Kuznetsov to discuss progress on existing and potential deals. Other members of the EBRD delegation included Nikolay Sorokin, head of the EBRD office in the Siberian Federal District, Bruno Balvanera, EBRD Head of Regional Development in Russia, as well as Alexander Orlov, EBRD Director for Government Relations in Russia.

Russia’s Siberian Federal District covers 12 of Russia’s 83 regions. Over 13 percent of Russia’s population lives within the vast resource-rich area covered by the District. 

Representatives of the EBRD Board attending the Krasnoyarsk events included:

Joachim Schwarzer, representing Germany

John Eyers, representing Australia, Korea, New Zealand and Egypt

James Hudson, representing the United States

Golan Benita, representing Israel, Austria, Cyprus, Malta, Kazakhstan, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Gianluca Grandi, representing Italy

Elena Kotova, representing the host nation, the Russian Federation, as well as Belarus and Tajikistan.