A Russo-Italian investment bank to fund the spread of Italian small and medium businesses in Russia is in the works.
Russian envoy to the European Union Serghei Iastrzhembski announced the creation of the bank after a meeting with an Italian business delegation here on Wednesday.
Italy's second-biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo is slated to join the merchant bank with Gazprom Bank and Russia's VEB state bank for development and foreign trade, he said.
Unspecified Italian energy companies will also be involved, he said.
There are already 800 Italo-Russian joint ventures in Russia providing jobs for some 25,000 people, Iastrzhembski added.
Emma Marcegaglia, the newly elected first woman president of the influential Italian employers' association Confindustria, said after Wednesday's talks that her Marcegaglia steel firm was discussing a joint venture with Russian steel giant Metall-Invest.
''We are talking to them. The groundwork is looking very good,'' said Marcegaglia, who said her group plans to put more than a billion euros into the project.
She also said Marcegaglia wants to set up a Russian plant to make stainless steel tubes and pipes.
Russia was the second most important market for her group after western Europe, Marcegaglia said.
She said she imported 600,000 tonnes of steel a year, worth some 400 million euros.
