Siberia, Far East, Japan mayors to meet in Yakutsk

VLADIVOSTOK, August 15 (Itar-Tass) -- A meeting of mayors of Siberia,
the Far East and the western coast of Japan will be for the first time
held in Yakutsk on August 20-24. Representatives of ten cities of Japan,
including Hakodate, Akita, Tsuruga, Maizuru, will attend the forum. Heads
of Khabarovsk, Birobidzhan, Blagoveshchensk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky,
Nakhodka, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Ulan-Ude and Vladivostok will represent
Russia at the meeting, ITAR-TASS learnt at the press service of the
administration of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
"The forum participants will discuss issues of development of mineral
resources of Russia's Far East, logistics and transportation of cargoes
between regions of the Far East and Japan, development of bilateral
tourism and other issues. Within the framework of the forum, a meeting of
representatives of Russian and Japanese business circles will be held and
a communique on the results of the meeting will be signed.
The guests of Yakutsk will have an interesting cultural programme.
They will visit the Mammoth and Archaeology Museum, the tourist complex
"Kingdom of Permafrost," the ethnographic complex "Chochur Muran" and
other sights.
The meeting of mayors of Russia and Japan is held in cities of both
countries in turn for more than 20 years already. The previous forum was
held in the city of Hakodate in the island of Hokkaido two years ago.