Volume 3, issue #25 - 27-10-1998

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Forging friendship between Sakhalin and Hokkaido

Sept. 9, 1998 The assembly of Japan's Hokkaido island and Russia's Sakhalin regional Duma agreed to give every effort to signing a friendship and economic co-operation accord between the 2 neighbouring regions.
The agreement to work for the accord was reached at talks between delegations of the regional legislatures, the chairman of the Hokkaido prefecture's assembly, Makoto Iwamoto, and the chairman of the Sakhalin Duma, Boris Tretyak, said.
Initiators of the accord, which will have no precedents in other Japanese prefectures and Russian Far Eastern regions, were regional governors Tatsuya Hori and Igor Farkhutdinov.
Deputies of the 2 legislatures also agreed to hold another meeting, after the co-operation accord is signed in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in November, to lay out measures for its implementation.
The co-operation will focus on the development of Sakhalin's offshore gas and oil fields, the building of the associated infrastructure and other economic deals.