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UNDP, Russian region agree $90 mln water project |
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| RUSSIA: June 19, 2000 | ||
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ST PETERSBURG - The U.N. Development Programme and Russia's Leningrad region have signed a $90 million deal to improve water in Russia's second city St Petersburg, a top UNDP official said.
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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.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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