Russian-Chinese subcommittee discussing transport cooperation.

BEIJING, September 3 (Itar-Tass) - Russian-Chinese subcommittee for
bilateral cooperation in transport is holding its 13th session in Beijing.

The delegations are led by the Russian Transport Minister, Igor
Levitin, and China's Railway Minister Liu Zhijun.
According to the date provided by the Russian Transport Ministry,
railways remain the major hauler of cargoes between the two countries. In
2008, they hauled 47.6 million tons of cargo and the figure for
January-June 2009 was 15.4 million tons.
Railway haulage of Russian crude oil reached 9 million tons at the end
of last year.
As regards commercial aviation, it hauled 33,800 tons of cargoes last
year and carried over 663,000 passengers.
Sources close to the talks indicate that the drafting of a new
intergovernmental agreement on air traffic is nearing completion.
"In spite of the global financial crisis, Russian and Chinese
transport systems make all the necessary efforts for promoting
transportation between the two countries," the organizers of the meeting
said in a press release.
The subcommittee is expected to do a summary and analysis of
performance over the previous twelve months, to consider proposals made by
groups of experts, to coordinate the plan for joint actions in 2010 and
20111, and to determine the place and date of the next session.

.Austrians say repetition of Russian-Ukrainian nat gas conflict
unlikely.

VIENNA, September 3 (Itar-Tass) - A repetition of the conflict over
natural gas that broke out between Russia and Ukraine at the beginning of
this year is very unlikely at the moment, Austrian business executives
said Wednesday.
Russia and Ukraine have settled the conflict and it does not pose the
threat of a relapse by now, said Werner Auli, a member of the executive
board of the oil and gas corporation OMV.
He sized up Russia's losses because of the stoppage of supplies to
Europe as a billion euros. This led him to conclude that the gas crisis
would not be replayed once again this year.
Auli called for exercising vigilance, however, saying the Ukrainian
transit gas throughput system is very old and technical failures in it are
quite possible.
On the whole, the gas crisis proved that the gas industry is quite
capable of resolving its problems independently, he said.
Walter Boltz, the CEO of the E-Control GmbH company that distributes
gas to Austrian customers agreed with Auli.
He said Europe had enough natural gas this winter but it did not have
the capabilities to deliver it to the places where it was most needed.
Boltz admitted that Austria covers the bulk of the national demand for
natural gas by importing it from Russia. However, one of the lessons one
can draw from this winter's events is that the existing pipelines should
be fitted out for a reverse pumping of gas with due account of the
reserves kept in underground storage facilities.
Had a scheme of this kind existed last winter, it would have helped
covering the deficit of around 650 million cubic meters of natural gas
that the countries of southern and southeast Europe had come to face with.
In this connection, Boltz called for a ramification of gas trading in
Europe and for imparting greater flexibility to it regardless of where the
fuel came from.
He indicated that the unification of the gas pipelines crossing
Austria's territory into an integrated flexible network might help
optimize the prices and straighten out conditions for competition.
-0-kle


.Regulation of prices for medicines to be central issue at all-Russia
conf.
3/9 Tass 4

KAZAN, September 3 (Itar-Tass) - Regulation of prices for medicines is
the central topic of an all-Russia conference that opens in the city of
Kazan, the Middle Volga area, Thursday, Marina Fairushina, the director of
the department of tariffs in Russia's constituent region of Tatarstan told
Itar-Tass.
"The conference is devoted to a most pressing problem that has a
bearing on millions of people in Russia," Fairushina said.
The list of participants includes officials from the Ministry of
Public Health and Social Development, the Federal Service for Supervision
in Public Health, and regional governments and organizations.
The conference will look at the ways of imposing state control on the
prices of vital and essential medicines.
Fairushina said the market of medicines has fallen into the hands of a
chain of go-betweens who apply the upper-limit wholesale markups, and the
absence of due controls over the process has brought about a totally
groundless increase of prices.
While the prices of medicines grew at a moderate rate from 2005
through 2007 and did not exceed the overall inflation rate, an impressive
leap occurred this year, she said.
According to Fairushina, the mass-demand medicines that are widely
used by the senior citizens and children played the role of the drive
engine of this growth.
As part of the anti-crisis program, the Russian government has drafted
some measures that will hopefully curb the high-paced growth of prices of
both Russian and imported medicines and their package, too, will come into
focus at the conference.
-0-kle