IN BRIEF

Published: December 5, 2012 (Issue # 1738)

City to Host G20

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The G20 summit will be held in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5 to 6 next year, Anton Siluanov, head of the Finance Ministry, announced at a press conference in Moscow on Monday.

Discussion at the summit is traditionally focused on financial and economic issues.

Russia intends to raise two new topics for discussion, including financing investment as the basis for economic growth and job creation, as well as the subject of modernizing the national state loan and state debt management systems, Interfax reported.

Snow Disposal

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The snow-melting facilities of the city’s Vodokanal water utility disposed of more than 41,000 cubic meters of snow in St. Petersburg from Friday through Sunday, Interfax reported, after the city experienced heavy snowfalls at the end of last week and during the weekend.

Court on the Hop

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The relocation of the Supreme Arbitration Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg may take up to four years, Anton Ivanov, chairman of the court said, Interfax reported.

“I think we’ll need at least four years for the construction of the buildings and the move of the judges,” Ivanov said during his visit to St. Petersburg for the ceremony of laying the first stone in the foundation of the city’s new building for the local arbitration court.

Ivanov said relocating the court may cost up to 50 billion rubles ($1.6 billion). Asked about the reaction of the court’s staff to the news about the move, Ivanov said that the Supreme Arbitration Court is “very young” and its judges are “more mobile.”

“I hope they will move to St. Petersburg and won’t tender their resignation,” Ivanov said.