vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #167 / Business / Reading article...

Shipyard to build modules

The Nakhodka Ship Repair Yard will place a bid to make pre-fab construction modules for a gas liquefying plant to be built on Sakhalin. The decision was made when a delegation from Sakhalin Energy was visiting Nakhodka recently, according to Nakhodka Vice Mayor Mikhail Panchenko. Sakhalin Energy is looking for a contractor that not far from Sakhalin. The bidding will not take place until after 2000.

Fixed-price shop opens

Russia’s first shop of fixed-price goods opened in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk recently. Shop owner Nakano Akira, vice president of the Association for Russian-Japanese Trade, said the idea was based on a Japanese model. The Sakhalin store has 5,000 items, and clothes all cost 100 rubles apiece while household items are 10 rubles each. If Sakhalin Cowboy-001 proves a success, Akira will open additional stores on Sakhalin and around the Far East.

Cops nab bootleg alcohol

Police in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in March and April seized 25,000 bottles of fake alcohol that were mainly smuggled in from the North Caucaus. Law enforcement agencies found a batch of bootleg Anapa wine imported from Krasnodarsky Krai that used stolen excise-duty stamps. Also, the Ostrov, Pshenichnaya, and Moneron vodka have been found to be fake. Police also destroyed about 2,500 bottles of various wines.

Rescue services cooperate

Sea rescue services from Russia, the United States, and Japan will hold joint exercises in Sakhalin’s Aniva Bay from May 18 to 21, said Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Transport Alexander Lugovets. The exercises are a part of an international convention on sea rescue and oil spill clean-up, he said.

Poll shows Kuril residents want to be Russian

If the Russian government cedes four disputed South Kuril islands to Japan, 80 percent of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk residents will demand the resignation of the federal government and the president, according to a poll by the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Pedagogical Institute. Almost 18 percent of those polled said they would take to arms and defend the islands, the poll indicated.