The regular 24th meeting of the Economic Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States will be held on May 23, 2005 at the President Hotel, Moscow.

The CIS states are expected to be represented by their Vice Prime Ministers in charge of economic issues in their respective governments, Plenipotentiary Representatives of the CIS states in the Commission on Economic Issues attached to the Economic Council of the CIS, officials of embassies of the CIS states in the Russian Federation.

V.B. Khristenko, Chairman of the Economic Council of the CIS, Special Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation on issues of further integration and cooperation with the CIS states, and Minister of the Russian Federation for the Industry and Energy, is expected to head the official delegation of the Russian Federation at the Economic Council.

Officials of the RF Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the RF Ministry of Finance, the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the RF Ministry of Industry and Energy, the RF Ministry of Defense, the Federal State Statistics Service, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power and the Federal Agency for Technical Control and Metrology are expected to attend the meeting as members of the Russian delegation and Russian experts.

The meeting is to address 22 issues, including draft concepts, agreements and programmes in electric energy, defense, nuclear energy, leasing, common budget development and use by the CIS bodies, operations of some industry bodies of the CIS.