By Mike Eckel Citing financial difficulties and political concerns on Sakhalin and in Russia as a whole, the Russian Far East/U.S. West Coast Ad Hoc Working Group has canceled its annual meeting to be held Sept. 28-30 in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The Ad Hoc Working Group, a part of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission, “regrets that local manifestations of the Russia-wide financial crisis and political reshuffling have made it impossible for the administration to coordinate the meeting,” Ginna Brelsford, director of the group’s American Executive Secretariat, said via e-mail. “In spite of the exhaustive efforts of the U.S. Commerce Department and the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade to explore all possibilities and alternatives, it has been decided to postpone the meeting until spring 1999,” read an official statement from the Secretariat. At the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk meeting, approximately 300 Russian and American participants had been expected, including regional and federal government representatives, private businesses, and non-profit organizations. The group’s agenda was tentatively planned to include presentations from all 12 of the group’s “sectors,” such as forestry, mining and telecommunications. Additional seminars were planned on Sakhalin’s burgeoning oil and gas industry, environmental issues related to the industry, and tourism and fisheries on the island. The Foreign Trade Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and the Sakhalin oblast administration were to be the primary sponsors of the meeting, said Vitaly Yelazarev, director of the oblast Foreign Economic Relations Department. However, in the months leading up to the meeting, the oblast administration had received “not one kopeck” from the federal ministries. “And our budget is entirely empty now,” he said, adding that the oblast’s hosting of several Japanese delegations over the course of the spring and summer had drained local coffers. “We hope, of course, to hold [the annual meeting] in the future, but that question depends entirely on finances,” said Yelazarev. An announcement on the location for the working group’s 1999 spring meeting will be announced shortly, according to the American Secretariat. © copyright 1998 the Vladivostok News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed in any form. [Back to News page]  [Back to Front page]  [Write to us]