24.10.2011
On October 24, 2011, in Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Russian Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment.
Some of the issues addressed by the meeting were several transactions involving Russia’s strategic assets, including transferring the powers of the sole executive body of Tomsk Distribution Company Open Joint-Stock Company (TDC, an operating entity of IDGC Holding) to a subsidiary of France-based electric utility Electricite Reseau Distribution France (ERDF) to be set up in Russia.
The opening remarks by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin emphasized this issue as a “highly interesting and promising project.” “Doubtless we are interested in seeing large foreign partners come with their advanced technologies, modern management systems, and instruction and research programs to the domestic electricity and public utility sectors and other infrastructural areas,” said the Russian Prime Minister. “This will encourage domestic companies very much to work on their efficiency and technology renovation. To sum up, this is a real modernization that will be to the benefit of both the Russian economy and each individual citizen.”
The project of IDGC Holding and ERDF to transfer TDC for French management had already been appreciated by Vladimir Putin. For instance, he referred to this initiative as a “new step” in developing relations between Russia and France at a meeting with active members of the French-Russian Dialogue Association in Paris on June 21, 2011 (as part of his working visit to France). “We have never had such cooperation with Western partners before,” the Russian Prime Minister underlined, adding that the French side “made the right decision to work in Siberia.”
TDC will be transferred for French management under the Strategic Cooperation Agreement signed by the chief executives of IDGC Holding and ERDF on June 17, 2011, in the presence of President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev and Secretary of State for Foreign Trade of the French Republic Pierre Lellouche at the 15th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The transfer of TDC for French management is aimed at raising the company’s performance efficiency to be evaluated according to certain criteria. The criteria include the quality of electricity transmission and network connection services, the level of investment program implementation, the level of electricity losses, the quality of investment planning, the electricity supply reliability indicator, and occupational safety and health.
The Russian Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment was established under the Federal Law “On the Procedure for Facilitating Foreign Investment in Legal Entities Having Strategic Importance for National Defense and State Security” to oversee foreign investment in economic entities that are strategically important for national defense and security. The Commission’s principal goals are as follows: prior approval of transactions leading to strategically important economic entities’ coming under the control of a foreign investor or a group of persons that includes a foreign investor, and approval of strategically important economic entities’ coming under the control of a foreign investor or a group of persons that includes a foreign investor or refusal to give such approval.
