The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and international infrastructure partners will take part together in the financing of a Rostelecom project to eliminate digital inequality among Russian regions, the national telecom operator announced in late May. Total investment by the fund and its partners in the project could come to 67.5 billion rubles (about $1.9 billion).
The RDIF, a $10 billion equity fund established by the Russian government, will create a special-purpose company to implement the financing. Funds will be accumulated in the company as equity investment, as well as debt financing at market rates and loans from the National Prosperity Fund (NPF).
Funds from the NPF will make up 40% of the total participation of the RDIF and its partners in the project, according to the RDIF.
So far, none of the foreign partners in the project have been named.
Among the main areas of collaboration between the RDIF and its partners and Rostelecom will be the construction of the needed telecommunications network, the creation of access points to it and conecting small settlements to it with fiber optic lines. Construction of the network is expected to take up to five years.
According to reports, the government granted Rostelecom the status of sole operator for universal communications services (public telephones, information terminals and Internet access) beginning April 1, and on May 13, 2014, Rossvyazi and Rostelecom signed a ten-year state contract on universal communications services. Under that agreement, Rostelecom must provide transmission services at a speed of no less than 10 MB/sec. to 13,600 settlements of between 250 and 500 people.
About 200,000 fiber optic lines will have to be built. The contractor for the construction of the lines has already been determined: the OAO Inter RAO UES Center for Energy Efficiency – a special purpose company jointly controlled by state energy holding Inter RAO UES and Atomstroyexport (part of Rosatom, the state nuclear energy corporation). The company will fulfill a 61.5-billion ruble contract.
Financing of the contract will be made from the universal fund to which all Russian operators contribute 1.2% of their annual revenue (about 15 billion rubles per year). Thus, Rostelecom will receive 150 billion rubles in the course of ten years. The Mininstry of Communications and Mass Media had earlier proposed allocating funds from the NPF to Rostelecom under a ten-year contract, with reimbursement through the universal fund. At the end of last year, Rostelecom signed a preliminary memorandum on the matter with the RDIF, which owns a 1.1% stake in the operator.
Source: ComNews.ru
