By Sarah Karush. Staff Writer.
The Moscow Times.. Saturday, Dec.
9, 2000. Page 8.
Vladimir Potanin, head of the Interros holding, said this week that his
company’s plans to complete a nickel plant in Cuba could help Russia
recover Soviet-era debt from Cuba.
"The project gives Russia an opportunity to expand nickel production at
enterprises on the Kola Peninsula, increase tax revenues and recover Cuba’s
debts," Itar-Tass quoted Potanin as saying Thursday after a meeting with
President Vladimir Putin, where the two discussed the Norilsk Mining Co.’s
plans to invest in Cuba’s Las Camariocas nickel smelter.
Soviet specialists assisted with construction of the smelter when work began
in 1983, but the plant was incomplete when work halted in 1991 after the Soviet
Union collapsed.
Russia has estimated Cuba’s debt at $27 billion.
Potanin said Norilsk Mining Co., which is a subsidiary of Interros’
flagship, Norilsk Nickel, would invest $300 million to finish the plant.
Potanin did not elaborate on the link between the debt and his company’s
investment, but the newspaper Kommersant laid out a framework it said Norilsk
Nickel had proposed.
The newspaper said that under the scheme, Norilsk Nickel would form a joint
venture with the Cuban state-owned General Nickel Co. to build the plant.
General Nickel’s share of the profits would go directly to the Russian
government to pay Cuba’s debt.
Norilsk Nickel spokesman Anatoly Komrakov could not confirm Friday that such
an investment-for-debt scheme was in the works, or that Putin planned to lobby
the Cubans on behalf of Norilsk Nickel.
Kommersant said Cuba has the world’s third-largest reserves of nickel
with 5.5 million metric tons of confirmed reserves. Canada has 7.4 million tons
and Russia 6.6 million tons of reserves, the newspaper reported.
But an unidentified source at Norilsk Nickel was quoted by Interfax as
saying "the fate of the project evidently will be decided at the highest
political level by the leadership of Russia and Cuba."
Putin is to visit Cuba on Wednesday.
Alexander Andreyev, a metals analyst at Brunswick UBS Warburg, said there
was nothing unusual about Putin’s involvement.
"As far as I know, in Cuba, issues of foreign investment are decided at
the government level," he said. | 