On 14th-18th June 2004 OJSC North-West Telecom is taking part in the Eighth St. Petersburg International Economic Forum – the main economic summit of Russia and the CIS.

On 16th June 2004 Venera Khusnutdinova - chief finance officer of North-west Telecom made a speech with the item Investment Potential of Regional telecom operators. The Experience of the Northwestern Federal District in the framework of round table The Problems of Information and Communication Sector Development in Russia and the CIS.

The round table was held by the Committee of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of RF for Economic Policy, Business and Property jointly with the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communication of RF. The meeting of the round table considered issues of implementing the state’s policy in the field of informatization, development of new technologies and the experience of introducing them, forming state information resources, the condition and development of the Internet in Russia and the CIS; the economic aspects of applying information technologies and other issues.   

The round table was led by:

• L.D. Reiman, Minister of Information Technologies and Communication,
• D.A. Milovantsev, Manager of the Federal Agency of Communication,  
• N.N. Mukhitdinov, General Manager of the Executive Committee of the Regional Commonwealth in communication,  
• V.K. Gusev, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of RF for Economic Policy, Business and Property.

In her report V.A. Khusnutdinova evaluated the results of the work of the reorganized communication companies ( Interregional Companies), noting that the implementation of integration processes in the field of finance, engineering policy , management and marketing had made it possible to improve the manageability of the industry, to optimize the investment policy and to make the tele communication business more transparent and attractive for investment. According to V.A. Khusnutdinova, it was not advisable to arrange the required technical re-equipment of the industry using only own funds. Therefore, a balanced proportion of own and borrowed sources of investment resources and their transparent and efficient investment in the development of the priority areas of Company’s operation comprise the main task of the present period in the development of the Interregional Companies.

North-West Telecom JSC plans to carry out upgrading of the network infrastructure, to develop new high-tech extra services and to fully meet the demand for telephone provision, by this side . As sources of external funding, JSC NWT intends to use long-term bank loans, as well as internal bonded loans, issuing the third bonded loan in 2004 and developing the ADR programme on a stage-by-stage basis.