THE MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT ON THE NECESSITE TO TRANSFORM RUSSIA INTO A
TRANSIT COUNTRY LEADER








MOSCOW, March 7.  (Corr. Ria " Novosti " Galina Filippova).  In the
future, Russia must become one of the first transit countries of the
world, A declares the Minister Russian for Transport Serguei Frank,
intervening has a session pleniere of Douma (Lower House of the
Russian Parliament).

The minister has informs the deputes on the improvement of the Russian
grid system and on creation of new corridors of transport.  He A
declares that according to the forecasts, to develop in Russia the
infrastructure of the international corridors of transport between
2001 and 2010 he would be necessary to invest 600 billion roubles
there (1 dollar = 28,5 roubles approximately).  If the prevus projects
are realises, the additional receipts, thanks to the development of
the transit towards 2010, will be able to amount has 8-9 per annum
billion dollars, said Serguei Frank.

According to the minister, the corridor of transsiberien transport
brings every year of the receipts from approximately 1 billion dollar.
In prospect, this figure could be gate has 2,5 billion dollars.  The
corridor of transport " NOR-South " brings from 1,5 A 2 billion
dollars.