OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2011. Sistema JSFC (“Sistema” or the “Group”) (LSE: SSA), the largest diversified public financial corporation in Russia and the CIS, today announces that it has signed a non-binding agreement with the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and the Rusnano Foundation for Infrastructure and Educational Programmes to jointly develop a cluster for R&D and manufacturing, which will be based at the Sarov technology park. The agreement was signed at the Rusnanotech 2011 International Nanotechnology Forum.

The aim of the high-technology cluster is to develop an innovation hub, which will offer FSUE RFNC-VNIIEF (the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre), Rosatom, Sistema’s subsidiaries and Rusnano project companies an advantageous base from which they can develop and implement various innovative projects. The centre’s general initiatives will include:

·  National high-tech innovation projects;

·  Raising private capital for on-going projects which will complement state funding;

·  Providing workplaces for nuclear specialists and enable them to make efficient use of facilities made available by the FSUE RFNC-VNIIEF;

·  Providing workplaces for young technology professionals and reducing the outflow of high-skilled labour from Russian industries involved in advanced technologies; and

·  Developing a large innovation centre, which will be based at Sarov technology park (located at Satis, Diveyevo district, Nizhny Novgorod region).

The agreement will enable each party to cooperate in a mutually beneficial manner in the following fields of technology:

·  Strategic information and nuclear technologies, including the creation of supercomputers and custom software;

·  Space technologies, including telecommunication technologies;

·  Energy efficient and energy saving technologies, including the development of advanced integrated systems;

·  Nanotechnologies and the development of products which contain nanotechnology materials.