UNDP, Russian region agree $90 mln water project
Date: 19-Jun-00
Country: RUSSIA
UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown told Reuters the bulk of the project would
be financed by France's SNF Floerger, while the U.N. agency saw its role in
piloting the project through local red tape so it could be implemented in six
years.
The UNDP said on Friday it had earlier this week mistakenly named the company
which was financing the bulk of the project as Sanofi SA.
"The water quality (in St Petersburg) just isn't what it needs to be for a major
international city, nor is what it needs to be for its citizens," Malloch Brown
said.
"The city needs decent municipal water not just for the health of its own
citizens, but for its attractiveness as an investment destination."
The project provides for the construction of several water purification factories
which would use SNF Floerger's technology and equipment. The Leningrad region,
which surrounds St Petersburg, still bears the city's Soviet-era name.
A UNDP project document quoted a report by the St Petersburg Sanitation
Department that contamination of drinking water was one of the causes of the high
disease rate in the city.