Another media confirmed that first stage of Amazar pulpmill project, ‘’Polyarnaya’’, is launched in Zabaikalskiy region. It is a joint Russian-Chinese project with total investment scope of $215 million, including the infrastructure.

‘’The neighboring regions are exporting roundwood, but we see there a new enterprise with state-of-the-art German equipment, and it will generate added value here, on the Russian territory’’, vice PM of regional government Evgeniy Vishnyakov said.

The mill, however, is now producing beams for the neighboring municipalities and for export. The investor says that by 2015 the mill will produce non-bleached sulfate pulp. The regional government assures that the mill complies with international environmental standards.

The logging site entails 500,000 ha of overmature forests close to Amazar.

Wood is of very poor quality, and final yield is quite low, as said by chief forester of Express LLC Aleksandr Kulusov.

The company plans to build 100 km of forest roads there. As long as the mill reaches rated capacity, municipal budget will get additional 122 million Rubles, while regional budget – around 2.5 billion Rubles.

Launch of the mill was first scheduled for 2007. Total investment scope of the project reached $500 million, while major investor was Sida, a Chinese company that planned to finance the construction with the help of Chinese banks. As regional minister for industry Oleg Polyakov said, as of 2010 the project cost was 13.5 billion Rubles (€335 million).

source: www.whatwood.ru