Tatarstan President visits Japan with the Russian delegation

November 12, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov is on a visit to Yokohama, Japan together with the Russian delegation in the framework of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s participation in the APEC summit.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, was established in 1989 to further enhance economic growth and prosperity for the region and to strengthen the Asia-Pacific community.

APEC is the only inter governmental grouping in the world operating on the basis of non-binding commitments, open dialogue and equal respect for the views of all participants. Unlike the WTO or other multilateral trade bodies, APEC has no treaty obligations required of its participants. Decisions made within APEC are reached by consensus and commitments are undertaken on a voluntary basis.

APEC has 21 members - referred to as "Member Economies" - which account for approximately 40.5%1 of the world's population, approximately 54.2%1 of world GDP and about 43.7%2 of world trade. APEC's 21 Member Economies are Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; The Republic of the Philippines; The Russian Federation; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; United States of America; Viet Nam.

Rustam Minnikhanov visited Japan a few times on working visits as Tatarstan Prime Minister. In May 2009, the visit by the then Tatarstan Prime Minister resulted in signing a memorandum of intent to build an ammonia, methanol and urea plant in Mendeleyevsk, Tatarstan.

Tomorrow, on November 13th, $1 bln contract between the Tatarstan-based plant Ammonia and the consortium of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd (Japan), Sojitz Corporation (Japan) and China National Chemical Engineering Group Corp (China) including plant engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) is planned to be signed.

The project will be the first large-scale fertilizer plant construction project in Russia in 20 years. The plant will have a capacity to produce 2,050 mtpd (metric tons per day) of ammonia, or 1,382 mtpd of ammonia and 668 mtpd of methanol in the case of concurrent production. It will adopt process technologies from Haldor Topsøe A/S of Denmark, Saipem S.p.A. of Italy, and Uhde Fertilizer Technology B.V. of the Netherlands. The plant is slated to go on-stream in 2015.