Trade between Russia, Austria declines, but expected to grow.

VIENNA, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - Trade between Russia and Austria is
expected to decline this year, however next year the situation will change
for the better, President of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber
Christoph Leitl believes.

According to him, the decline can reach 15 percent this year as
compared with 2008. "We feel the aftermath of the current global crisis,"
Leitl told Tass. "However, by the end of the year the decline will stop,
and next year we expect an improvement of the economic climate," he
stressed. "We shall see stabilization with a slight tendency to a growth.
This inspires optimism," he added.
He believes it is necessary to readjust the banking system and
establish a normal circulation of financial flows, which feed business and
the economy on the whole. "It is necessary to inspire optimism in
consumers and investors. I am sure we shall manage that. However, we must
together draw common lessons from this crisis, so that those who triggered
it would fail to do this once again," he said. "We need common rules of
the game and we must work on them together," he summed up.
On Tuesday, Christoph Leitl received the highest Russian award - the
Order of Friendship. Visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
presented the order on behalf of the Russian president. He marked a
successful development of bilateral ties in the economic sphere,
particularly in the development of direct contacts between Russian and
Austrian regions.
Leitl, for his part, said that contracts worth three billion euros,
signed during a visit to Austria by the Russian president two years ago,
have been implemented and have helped strengthen bilateral trade and
economic ties.
The president of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber himself invests
money in the development of Russia's food industry, and at the present
moment provides with jobs about 2,000 Russians. "Of course we directly
feel the impact of the crisis, but I am not going to cut investments in
Russia, if anything," he told Tass.

.Russia's Chuvashia, Belarus to boost trade ties.

CHEBOKSARY, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's republic of Chuvashia and
Belarus signed on Tuesday an agreement on trade and economic cooperation
for 2009-2010, seeking to boost business ties despite the global crisis.
Deputy Prime Minister of Chuvashia Yuri Voloshin and his Belarussian
counterpart Vladimir Potupchik noted that over the past seven years mutual
supplies of commodities have been growing yearly by 20 to 30 percent.
According to the Belarusian Statistics Ministry, last year Chuvashia
received from Belarus machines, equipment, transport means, textiles,
footwear and agricultural products worth over 18.9 million dollars.
Belarus received from Chuvashia last year commodities worth almost 41
million dollars. Despite the global financial crisis, the partners decided
to boost business ties in 2009-2010, including in the sphere of culture,
education and sports.

.Cyclone washes out Sakhalin railway.

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - A powerful cyclone hovering
over Russia's Sakhalin washes out island's railway. A 1.5-kilometre-long
section has been flooded in the Makarovo district, Sakhalin Railway
spokesman Sergei Dashchinsky said on Wednesday.
Passenger trains wait at the stations of Nogliki and
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and about 150 people have been living in them for over
a day. A total of 180 people, assisted by bulldozers, excavators and other
railway hardware clear the railway bed from mud and drain away water.

.FSB head favours stronger cooperation in anti-terrorist fight.

IRKUTSK, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)
head Alexander Bortnikov on Wednesday came out in favour of strengthening
partnership cooperation of secret services in fight against terrorism.
We are facing a common task - to protect citizens from any terrorist
manifestations, Bortnikov said in the opening remarks at the eighth
session of heads of secret services and law enforcement agencies in
Irkutsk.
"To successfully solve it, it is necessary to further strengthen
partnership cooperation. Coordinated and consistent efforts of all
interested parties are needed to work out and implement efficient measures
in the sphere of fight against terrorism, including exposure and
elimination of conditions contributing to the spread of its ideology,"
Bortnikov emphasized.
According to him, the session held on a regular basis "is one of the
efficient instrument to reach these goals". He noted that "fight against
terrorism can be effective only if efforts of the whole world community
are joined". The United Nations makes its contribution to this fight. A
number of anti-terrorist resolutions, and first of all the Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy, have been worked out under the UN aegis, he
stressed.
"I believe it is important to further develop and strengthen
diversified cooperation with the United Nations and its specialized
anti-terrorist agencies," Bortnikov added.
Terrorism is acquiring the global nature, triggering interfaith and
interethnic conflicts, he stressed.
"At the present stage, terrorism as phenomenon has outgrown national
boundaries, acquiring more and more the global character,"
"Being a challenge to the whole international community, terrorism
poses a threat to the territorial integrity of states, destabilizes the
work of legally elected governments, triggers interfaith and interethnic
conflicts," the FSB director stressed.
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