Gazeta: “Vladimir Putin inaugurates banana route to South America”
Prime Minister Putin inaugurated a new sea shipping route in St Petersburg on Monday. The new transoceanic line will bring bananas from far-away Ecuador to Russia. Deputy Transport Minister Viktor Olersky told Gazeta that bananas on the Russian market will be cheaper and fresher thanks to the new route.
The project was implemented and financed by Denmark. The Danish company Maersk Line will carry cargoes between the two continents. Appropriately, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen was present at the inauguration ceremony.
The ceremony took place at St Petersburg's main port in a tent that was pitched on the piers where a new 210 metre long container carrier was berthed. The ship was laden with 2,500 containers with fresh Ecuadorian bananas, according to the port workers.
Grapes without wrath
Denmark bought six new ice-class container vessels with huge refrigerator capacity specially for the new line. Maersk Line invested a total of $45 million in the project. The line opens new opportunities for Russian business as well: on the return run containers will be filled with new coal mining equipment for Chile, fertiliser for Ecuador and Colombia and foodstuffs for other Latin American countries.
"This is not just an inauguration, this is the creation of new opportunities for business, trade and investments," Putin said at the inauguration of the route. "It will help keep the price of bananas and tropical fruits from increasing."
Viktor Olersky promised that thanks to the new line, bananas will be of much better quality and a bit cheaper. "Fruit vendors will at least have a chance to cut their prices," Olersky told Gazeta. But the quality will improve 100% because there will be no need to reload the containers several times. A banana is a highly perishable good and every reloading affects its quality. "Hitherto, bananas had to be reloaded in Western Europe from ships into road vehicles whence they were delivered to Russia."
Danish beer bottled in Petersburg
Transport Minister Igor Levitin promised that the new route would cut the time of cargo travel from Ecuador by five hours and thanks to new state regulations for inspecting containers in ports, the unloading and loading time will be decreased by a further four to six hours. On the whole, the project is important for Russia because it develops its port infrastructure, Putin said.
During the inauguration ceremony the two prime ministers boarded the ship and the Danish guest actuated the sirens that reverberated across the Gulf of Finland. Putin and Rasmussen had a talk in a makeshift yet well-heated tent on the piers. Rasmussen told Putin that the launch of a new route was a fine example of the advantages of globalisation and Russia's integration in the world economy.
To emphasise the extent to which Russia has been integrated and globalised, Putin offered Rasmussen to taste Gailsberg beer produced by the Russian Baltika company and compare its taste to that of the original product. The Danish prime minister screwed up his face because he did not expect that the original taste could be reproduced outside his country, but agreed and reciprocated with a more pleasant offer, for Putin to visit Denmark. Putin could not refuse the offer and decided to take this opportunity in order, among other things, to look at the preparations for the building of the Nord Stream pipeline. Putin said Russia remembered that Copenhagen had been the first to agree to the building of the new pipeline.
Adding nuclear energy to round timber
After reaffirming contacts with the Danes, the Russian prime minister set about sorting out problems with the Finnish business people. The head of Nokia, Jorma Ollila, had asked the prime minister for a meeting because, in spite of numerous contacts, Finnish business people in Russia still face some problems, the prime minister's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said. Taking part in that meeting was the Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
As usual, the question of export duties on round timber was at the top of the agenda. It will be recalled that Russia had decided to keep the rates on the main types of timber unchanged until January 1 next year, although originally they were to be raised this year. Putin urged the Finnish partners to once again consider the benefits of long-term work in the Russian market, to invest in the logging industry and in the creation of processing plants inside Russia. So far there are only nine enterprises with Finnish participation.
Putin then moved on to energy, another traditional theme of Russian-Finnish discussions. Naturally, he thanked Helsinki for consenting to the construction of Nord Stream before steering the conversation in an unexpected direction. He proposed to consider broader Russian participation in the development of Finland's nuclear power industry. "We count on fair and non-discriminatory approach in the competitive bidding procedures to build new units," Vladimir Putin said. "The International Atomic Energy Agency considers Russian reactors among the most reliable."
Anastasia Novikova
