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The “Extended Tumangan Initiative – extension of cooperation in North-Eastern Asia” two-day investment forum opened in Vladivostok on Thursday to discuss ways to further develop the Tumen River territory, though some experts believe that the project is not beneficial for Russia.

Russia has worked out a new strategic program called “Economic and Social development of the Russian Far East and Zabaikalye to 2013,” and the program will help attract financial and technological resources to integrate Russia’s regions and neighboring countries of North-East Asia, head of Primorye’s legislators, Viktor Gorchakov, said at the forum opening.

According to Gorchakov, the Extended Tumangan Initiative will play an important role in bringing these tasks to fruition because the program has a high international status and acts as a coordinating mechanism for international cooperation in the region.

More than 100 participants from China, North and South Korea, Mongolia and Russia gathered to discuss ways to stimulate trade and investment inflow in the Tumangan project, which currently deals with international issues of economic cooperation, transportation, tourism, ecology, electricity and telecommunications.

The Tumen River is a border area for three countries – Russia, China and North Korea. In 1995 representatives of the three countries plus South Korea and Mongolia signed an agreement to start a joint project on developing the Tumen River region. The project involves the future construction of ports and roads and experiments with joining the efforts of five countries.



In Vladivostok the participants discussed new investment projects and a budget for 2008, as well as the creation of a trust fund for the Tumangan Initiative.

However some pundits say the project may bring Russia problems in future. Viktor Gaikin, a historian working in the Far Eastern branch of the Academy of Sciences, criticized the Tumangan Initiative saying that “the project will bring us [Russians] nothing good.”

“First, near the port city of Vladivostok we will have a rival port. They are discussing now the construction of a Eurasian Transportation corridor with the final point in Tumangan. The line will become a replica of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad. As a result the cargo flow will pass outside Russia,” Gaikin said, the Vladivostok newspaper reported on Friday.

“Some experts say that the Trans-Siberian Railway has a geographical advantage – it is shorter than the planned corridor. However, the advantage will be lost if we consider the speedy economic development of Asian countries and their dynamic organization of production,” Gaikin wrote in his article. “The corridor may soon turn into a much faster way of door-to-door cargo transportation. As a result Vladivostok will turn into a remote suburb of Russia instead of Russia’s main city in the Far East region,” he concluded.