OREANDA-NEWS. August 10, 2012. Official opening of a new production mine built by a famous German company Basalt AG took place on August, 9 in Kondopoga region of Karelia. On the eve in the Government of the republic First Deputy Head of the Republic of Karelia Alexander Chazhengin met with investors and discussed prospects of work of the enterprise.

Chief Representative at Basalt AG Mr Ulrich Steinert and other company representatives, as well as Minister of Nature Management and Ecology of Karelia Viktor Chikalyuk and his assistant Viktor Matrosov took part in the meeting.

According to Mr Ulrich Steinert, the company has become interested in development of business in Karelia as our republic possesses very qualitative natural resources like no other region of Russia. In construction of the mine in Kondopoga region at the station of Novyi Poselok it has been invested more than 30 million euros, hi-tech crushing-and-sorting units have been established there. Intended capacity of the enterprise will make 1 million tons of crushed aggregates a year. The product quality will be monitored permanently, and it will correspond to the Russian and European norms. The main consumers will be companies from Moscow and St.-Petersburg.

German investors have paid much attention to the environment protection, having established special systems for irrigation and dust control. Permanent monitoring of the environment is performed in the mine.

At the moment there're about 50 production workers. In 2013 the number of employees will make motre than 100 people, most of them are involved from nearby villages. The mine management declares that they intend to work long in Karelia, therefore the salary will be above average on the industry of the republic, and the enterprise will become a reliable tax bearer. Besides, it is planned to render assistance to local authorities to put the roads in order.

Basalt AG was founded in Germany in 1888 and is one of Germany’s leading producers of natural stone used at production of asphalt mixes for constructions of various roads. As it was mentioned at the meeting, in the homeland the company makes about 50 million tons of product annually. In the Northwest of Russia the company also owns a mine near the village of Shcheleiki at the border of the Leningrad region and Karelia.

On behalf of the Government, Alexander Chazhengin greeted the European investors: "We are glad, that we have reliable partners that implement large projects in the republic today. Such partnership should extend and be of mutual benefit."

"It is also very important to us that with your arrival in the Karelian market we have an opportunity to introduce new technologies and approaches to development of our resources. It is important that your business is built by the civilized European rules," - Alexander Chazhengin said in addition.

Matters at the meeting concerned various issues accompanying opening of large enterprises: construction of railway access roads, interaction with logging companies and number of other issues.