In the period from May 31 to June 2, 2010 a Managing Director of the international company "Conning" Mr. Markus van der Burg visited Moscow with a working visit. He introduced the results of the preparatory phase to the implementation of the UNECE project "Financing Energy Efficiency Investments for Climate Change Mitigation".

The project is expected to be realized in 12 countries of Eastern Europe and CIS countries, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The project will last 7 years.

In the framework of the project, an investment fund will be established on the basis of public private partnership in order to provide project sponsors with the capital in the amount of USD 250 million for projects in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy. At the present time, the structural framework of the investment fund is completed; the financial and regulatory conditions of the project requirements are elaborated further as well. It is planned that the fund will be launched at the end of 2010 and will operate with 100 million Euros on opening stage.

On May 31, Mr. van der Burg met with representatives of CIS Electric Power Council, UNDP and engineering equipment plant (M. Saparov, V. Malakha, A. Averchenkov, S. Lyapunov). Also he met with Chairman of the Board - Director General of Public Limited Company "Roskommunenergo" Mr. Shulgin.

On June 1, Mr. van der Burg participated in the meeting with Director of the Directorate on project management in the field of energy saving and nature management Mr. Gavrilov, and also with representatives of the insurance company ROSNO B. Tavakolli, P. Dolgikh, A. Lebedinov, E. Kurnosova, A. Galenovich.

On June 2, there were held meetings with the executive director of International Sustainable Energy Development Centre S. Koblov who is also a chairman of the bureau of the UNECE program "Energy efficiency XXI", deputy chairman of Gazprombank T.Yurlova, president of the KRIOKOR Company A. Stepanets.

The meetings also were visited by representatives of Russian Ministries: Deputy Director of the Department of state energy policy and energy efficiency of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation M. Korznikova, Head of Department of environment and development of renewable energy N. Sviridov, Director of the Department of housing and municipal services of Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation I. Bulgakov.

The Russian side expressed interest in the further cooperation in order to prepare project proposals and determine the participation of Russian the financial institutions in financing and insurance projects.

ISEDC press-center