OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2010. Rostelecom (NYSE: ROS; RTS and MICEX: RTKM, RTKMP), Russia’s national  telecommunications operator, hereby announces that after having assessed the operator’s corporate governance, RID-Expert RA Consortium  has upgraded its rating to 8 on the National Corporate Governance Rating Scale (NCGR).

An 8 rating is currently the highest evaluation assigned to Russian companies, and no other company has such a high rating. The 8 rating proves the extensive corporate governance practice adopted within Rostelecom, as well as its high level of information transparency.

RID-Expert RA Consortium believes that an 8 category assignment means that the Company has low corporate governance risks, is compliant with Russian legislation, and follows to a large extent, in its practice, the recommendations set out in the Corporate Conduct Code and individual recommendations of advanced international corporate governance practice.

The National Corporate Governance Rating of RID-Expert RA (NCGR) expresses the opinion of RID-Expert RA Consortium about the corporate governance practice of different companies.

NCGR (http://www.rid.ru/rating/) is a comprehensive evaluation of different companies’ corporate governance practices based on four criteria: shareholder rights, the composition and efficiency of governing bodies, information disclosure, and corporate social responsibility. NCGR is also a risk assessment of corporate governance practice, since, in the opinion of RID-Expert RA the higher the rating the lower the corporate governance risks associated with the company under evaluation.