RusForest Receives FSC CertificationStockholm, 2012-09-24 08:05 CEST --
RusForest AB (publ) (“RusForest” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ OMX: RUSF), a Swedish forestry company with operations in Russia, announces completion of the certification process for the majority of its operations according to Forest Stewardship Council (“FSC”) rules. FSC certificates for the Company’s operations were issued by Rainforest Alliance, the global leader in forest certification.
The Company’s harvesting units located in the Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Russia received the FSC forest management and chain of custody certificates. These certificates cover forest leases of 2.6 million hectares with an annual allowable cut (“AAC”) of approximately 3.4 million cubic meters, representing more than 90 percent of the Company’s AAC.
RusForest’s main sawmills (Arkhangelsk LDK-3, Magistralny and Boguchany) and its wholesale export operation (RusForest Trade House) also received the chain of custody certificates for their products and raw materials.
RusForest pays special attention to the social and environmental impacts of its business activities in Russia. The Company maintains highly valuable forests in close cooperation with local communities and leading environmental organizations such as WWF and Greenpeace.
Garrett Soden, the Company’s CEO, commented, “The FSC certification of our timber leasing, harvesting and sawmilling operations is a key step towards increasing price realizations for our sawnwood products. Certification together with our recent sawmill investments will allow us to expand our sales channels and reach higher value markets like Europe and Japan.”
Additional information about FSC and its main principles can be found at: www.fsc.org
About RusForest
RusForest is a publicly-traded Swedish forestry company operating in eastern Siberia and the Arkhangelsk region of Russia. The Company controls approximately 3 million hectares of timber through long-term leases with an annual allowable cut (“AAC”) of approximately 3.6 million cubic meters. RusForest owns five sawmills in close proximity to its forest leases and is self-sufficient in raw material to produce more than 400,000 cubic meters per year of sawnwood products. The Company is listed on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm First North (ticker symbol “RUSF”). RusForest’s largest shareholder is Vostok Nafta Investment Ltd, which owns approximately 29 percent of the Company’s shares.
RusForest AB's Certified Adviser on First North is Pareto Öhman AB.
For additional information, please visit the Company’s website at www.rusforest.com or contact:
Mia O’Connor, Investor Relations, telephone: +46 8 771 85 00
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