The 17^th meeting of the Mutual Assistance Committee under the Pacific and Indian Ocean Cable Maintenance Cable Agreement (PIOCMA MAC - 17) is scheduled to be held at the Marriott Grand Hotel in Moscow on August 27 - 29, 2002. The event is being organized by Rostelecom and this is the first time it is to take place in Russia. The meeting will be attended by the representatives of the world's 15 largest telecommunications companies (AT&T, China Telecom, Korea Telecom, Indosat, etc.) and the owners of cable vessels which service underwater cable lines in this region.  The first vice minister of telecommunications and informatics of the Russian Federation B.D. Antonyuk is scheduled to attend the meeting along with the director general of OJSC Rostelecom, S.I. Kuznetsov, the first deputy director general of OJSC Rostelecom D.E. Yerokhin and the technical director of OJSC Rostelecom V.D. Terekhov.  

In his address to the attendees of the meeting B.D. Antonyuk expressed his gratitude to the chairman of PIOCMA Mr. William Colb for the opportunity given Rostelecom to hold this meeting in Moscow. Mr. Antonyuk also noted that Rostelecom operates on the international market not only via dry-land trunk channels, but also by way of international marine cable lines, such as Denmark - Russia 1 and Italy-Turkey-Ukraine-Russia-Japan-Korea, with a total length of over 6,000 kilometers.  Presentations were made at the meeting by AT&T, GSML, ASN and KDDI.  The meeting also addressed ways and means to adopt cutting-edge technology used in servicing, operating and protecting underwater cables, as well as the principles used on cable vessels in the Pacific Ocean basin until 2003.  Another part of the meeting was devoted to ongoing and current expenses for the maintenance of cable vessels.  Special attention was also focused on financial problems affecting the global telecommunications market.