Correspondent Ellen Pinchuk

Hi dear friends, here I am joined by Vladimir Dmitriev, he is the chairman of Vneshekonombank, which is Russia’s Development Bank. We have so much to talk about today, so I think        we start with this hot news of TNK-BP. How important is this for the story of industrial companies in Russia, do you believe?

Vneshekonombank CEO Vladimir Dmitriev

 I think this is a very right move in the right direction in terms of proving corporate governance among Russian corporates and among joint stock companies. And that’s a proof that good reasons and prudence is taking over emotion moves and emotional approaches. So I deeply welcome such decision, a compromise, which was found by shareholders within their shareholders agreement.

E.P.           Over this month we have had a shareholders dispute. How great do you feel is the damage as to Russia’s reputation as a place to do business given that fact that of course the government was somehow implicated in this whole story with all these visa problems, tax inspections, etc.

V.D.            I don’t see any artificial moves from anybody’s side to implicate the problem, and make it more complicated. I think it’s quite a natural thing to have disputes within corporate structure and between shareholders, and I’m completely satisfied that finally they found appropriate and amicable decision, a way out of this dispute.

CORR.        We’ve seen that the Russian bosses this year have taken quite a hit both around downrun 30% this year so far a lot of that in the last month on the back of this Georgia conflict, and BMP Paribas saying that some 30 bln dollars in capital has left the country since the beginning of the Georgia conflict. How does it seem to you that investors are going scared off of Russia?

V.D.            I would not generally say that there are any bigger problems in terms of foreign investors into Russia, in terms of speculative investors. And I think that that sort of investors we should talk about judging by or viewing the outflow of this short term capital from the Russian market. But long-term, strategic investors are still here, and I don’t see any bigger problems for them to work in our country, and to widen their presence in our economy.

E.P.           And the prime minister, Vladimir Putin said a couple of days ago that there will be not any serious implications for the Russian economy from the Georgia conflict. Do you think the government needs to be doing more to reassure investors that their money is safe here?

V.D.            I think that our government and economic, monetary authorities are doing quite well – not only right now but through the long period of time, to assure foreign investors that Russia is a very stable, sustainable and reliable partner in their affairs. So what is doing on behalf of the government in terms of our legislative procedure – everything is done to reassure investors that investment climate in Russia is rather attractive. And we see a lot of new capital, strategic capital coming to our country in various sectors of our economy.

E.P.            Let’s track out to ruble for a second is trading near its weakest level in the year against the dollar all so site biggest one day decline yesterday against the ruble the Dollar-Euro basket since 2005. What are your predictions for the ruble in the long term?

V.D.            I don’t see any particular unexpected moves from our monetary authorities in this we got, because for several months both the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance used to say, “Yes, we have to come over to targeted inflation within which the free fluctuating ruble is one of the circumstances which should be taken into consideration. And in terms of recent trend I think it may positively impact on Russian export.

E.P.            Right, thank you very much. That was Vladimir Dmitriev, chairman of the Vneshekonombank, and back to you in London.

Bloomberg
04.09.2008