Commodities exchange to be established in St. Petersburg

Deputy Economic and Trade minister Kirill Androsov said that the international commodities exchange in St. Petersburg will be registered in September or October 2007.

Speaking to journalists in Moscow, Androsov said the exchange would have an initial capital of $US 50 MLN and it would specialise in commodities such as aluminium, timber and metals, and particularly a new Russian export blend crude oil REBCO and oil products.

Leading Russian companies have been invited to participate, with a limit of 10% ownership for founding members.

“The state will not directly participate in the commodities exchange but we hope that companies in which the state has a significant stake will be involved: firms like Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft. We have also called Sberbank and VTB and hope they will be interested. Nomex is invited and we would like to see Russia's main raw materials exporters among the shareholders,” shared his expectations Mr Androsov.