<tit>EXCHANGE TRADE IN CONTRACTS FOR OIL AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS BEGINS IN RUSSIA
Stock Exchange Russian Trading System (RTS) starts trading in contracts for oil and petroleum products. Starting June 8, payment futures contracts and options for Urals crude, as well as for diesel fuel, jet fuel and fuel oil will be traded in the framework of FORTS (futures and options in RTS) section of the exchange. Trade in contracts with fulfillment for July, August, September of 2006, and further up to June of 2007, will be started simultaneously.
Payments for futures and option contracts for oil and petroleum products will be done in roubles on the basis of prices calculated by Platts agency. Circulation period of a contract is one month. The minimum size of the guarantee coverage of the launched futures will amount to 10%. The RTS will charge exchange fee of 1 rouble per contract.
<ref>Finmarket agency, June 08, 2006
<tit>RUSSIA IS AMONG THE LEADING EUROPEAN COUNTRIES ACCORDING TO INVESTMENT ATTRACTIVENESS
Russia is among the leading European countries according to investment attractiveness. This is demonstrated by the report of Ernst & Young presented on June 7, at the fourth international investment conference being currently held in France. According to the report, Russia has seventh place on the list including 15 European countries being the most attractive from the standpoint of investors.
According to investment attractiveness parameters, Russia managed to outrun not only such countries of the European Union as the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium but also dynamically developing Hungary. Authors of the report remark that investment image of Russia even exceeds its real achievements in attraction of foreign investments. According to Ernst & Young, 111 investment projects were accomplished in Russia in 2005, which enabled it to take ninth place in the top 15.
As a result, Russia fell two positions down in the list of European countries that managed to attract the biggest volume of foreign investments in comparison to 2004. Analysts of Ernst & Young presume that in this situation the task of Russia is transformation of potential of its investment image into real projects. According to authors of the report, there are all necessary conditions for fulfillment of this task. According to results of a poll of 505 investors already operating in Europe or planning to come to Europe, Russia took third place in the list of European countries being the most attractive for investments having scored 9% of votes.
Only Germany (13%) and Poland (12%) were ahead of Russia, whereas France took only fourth place with 7% of votes and UK, Czech Republic, Romania and Belgium ending the list scored 3%.
<ref>gazeta.ru, June 07, 2006
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