MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - During the two-day 30th session of the UN Interagency Procurement Working Group (IPWG), which concluded its work in here yesterday, Russian Chamber of Commerce President Yevgeny Primakov noted Russian's companies' weak competition for UN contracts, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

Russia's share in UN contracts is small and is limited to transport services, mainly air transport, although the competitive potential of Russian goods and services is much larger.

Session participants announced Russian businessmen would have access from now on to information about the dates and conditions of all UN tenders.

However, UN official James Provenzano, who presided over the session, said at this point the UN could not offer Russia any concrete contracts to be signed during the session. "We are still at the contact stage. The UN expects Russian companies to join a fierce competition for our contracts. The most important task for business is to increase its level of responsibility."

UN experts believe Russian businessmen are still lacking skills in risk management. The fact that they avoid the creation on nation-wide business networks augments the existing risks of business contacts.

The volume of UN contracts with many countries exceeded $5 billion by 2003. In contrast, Russian contracts in 2004 only brought in $140 million. All Russian contracts were concluded under the UN peacekeeping program, while other countries participated in a variety of other UN programs.

On January 1, 2005, the UN company list registered 52 Russian companies, and to date has added another 28, but the only UN actively works only with about three dozen of them.