BUSINESS

In Brief

New Bukvoyed Store

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg bookstore chain Bukvoyed will open a new store Saturday, the company said Wednesday in a statement.

Bukvoyed already operates 27 bookstores. The new store will open in the “On” shopping center in the Nevsky district. The company has invested about $60,000 into the store, whose range will include over 10,000 items. This year Bukvoyed plans to open eight stores in St. Petersburg and four stores in other parts of the northwest region.

Toyota to Sell Camry

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Toyota Motors will start selling Camry cars produced at its new St. Petersburg plant on March 31, the company said Wednesday in a statement.

As a result of the decrease in customs taxes, the company recommended that its authorized dealers and partners decrease the price for the Toyota Camry by nine percent to 790,000 rubles ($33,500). Last year the company sold 26,358 Camry cars in Russia — a 45.6 increase on 2006 figures.

Baikal Waste to Stop

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — A pulp plant controlled by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska will stop dumping waste into Lake Baikal, which holds about a fifth of the world’s fresh surface water.

Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mills, in which Deripaska’s company Basic Element has a majority stake, agreed to activate a closed, internal drainage system by Sept. 15, eliminating the flow of waste water into the lake, the Natural Resources Ministry said Thursday in an e-mailed statement.

The ministry also gave the plant until April 28 to present a plan for reducing its “negative impact” on groundwater quality. It also ordered Irkutsk regional authorities to turn on a water-filtering system in the city of Baikalsk by Aug. 15.

The plant was forced by the ministry to suspend operations for five days in December. Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the ministry’s environmental watchdog, said Dec. 17 that the mill was pumping an “unacceptable” amount of pollution into the lake. Baikal is the world’s oldest and deepest lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sturgeon Fishing Out

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — The head of Russia’s Fisheries Committee called for a five-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea, warning that the fish, whose eggs and meat are prized delicacies, faces extinction, Interfax reported.

Russia will ask the other Caspian Sea countries — Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan — to stop fishing for sturgeon, the Russian news service said, citing Andrei Krainy. The impact on these countries’ budgets “would not be large,” Krainy told reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Interfax said.

Russia is ready to stop sturgeon fishing in the Caspian entirely this year. Only 24 tons of Russia’s 50-ton annual quota allowed for scientific purposes is filled, because so few fish remain, Interfax said, citing Krainy.

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