REMONDIS founds a joint venture with the City of Minsk.

Lünen, Minsk. On 06 July 2010, the contract between REMONDIS and the City of Minsk to found a public private partnership was signed by the mayor, Nikolaj Alexandrovitsch Ladutko, and REMONDIS board member, Egbert Tölle, in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus. The new joint venture, in which REMONDIS has a 51% share and the City of Minsk a 49% share, is to be run under the name REMONDIS Minsk. This privatisation measure between the City of Minsk and REMONDIS is the largest of its kind ever to have been carried out in the Republic of Belarus.

The capital city of the Republic of Belarus has over 1.8 million inhabitants and covers an area of 305km² making it the largest city in the country. Altogether, more than 3 million people live in the surrounding oblast and the city of Minsk. Belarus is looking to transform its classic waste management sector into a recycling economy in accordance with western European standards over the coming years. To be able to achieve this, considerable investments must be made to extend the infrastructure, modernise the fleet of vehicles and build new sorting and composting plants - it is intending to do this together with partners such as REMONDIS. The newly founded company, REMONDIS Minsk, will, to begin with, provide its services with a workforce of 185 employees.

The new public private partnership will begin by taking over the waste management services for around 700,000 inhabitants within the framework of a joint venture with the municipal waste management business and a partner company that specialises in recyclables. REMONDIS Minsk is to introduce a separate collection system in Minsk and the surrounding areas in order to be able to increase the volumes of secondary raw materials recovered and marketed. Shortterm plans are to extend these services to cover the whole of the city. Together with the introduction of the separate collection system, REMONDIS will invest in sorting technology to ensure that a higher purity level is reached with the recovered recyclables. It is also intending to invest in a composting plant at a later date in order to treat organic waste and at the same time take the pressure off the landfills. The aim is to clearly reduce the volumes of residual waste which have to be taken to landfill at the moment as well as to collect all the recyclables found in waste that can be returned to the Belarusian economy as secondary raw materials.

Moreover, REMONDIS is in advanced discussions with other cities and is particpating in tenders involving the privatisation of other municipal water and waste management companies.

"I have seen for myself the effectiveness of REMONDIS' services and am sure that we have found an experienced, globally active partner for an even cleaner city," commented Mr Nikolai Alexandrovitsch Ladutko, mayor of the City of Minsk, at the signing of the contract.

"Entering the water and recycling sector is very interesting for a country such as Belarus as it does not have large volumes of natural resources. This is the first time such a privatisation has been carried out in Belarus and I believe the joint venture in Minsk to be a very promising way to enter the water and recycling sector," said René Liese, regional director at REMONDIS International GmbH responsible for Belarus.

REMONDIS board member, Egbert Tölle, underlined the importance of the new PPP for Belarus' economy. "Thanks to its know-how and its investments in mod-ernising the water and recycling sector in Belarus, REMONDIS is contributing towards improving resource conservation and creating a sustainable raw material economy."

Background:

REMONDIS is one of the world's largest privately owned water and environmental service providers and serves more than 20 million people. Via its branches and associated companies, REMONDIS is active in 21 European countries, in China, India, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

Further information is available from:

REMONDIS SE & Co. KG
Michael Schneider
Marketing & Corporate Communication
Brunnenstraße 138
44536 Lünen
T +49 2306 106-515
E-Mail