Akimov says he will join RZD board
NOVOSIBIRSK. July 3 (Interfax) - Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov said that he would take a seat on the board of directors of Russian Railways (RZD).
"We now have certainty. I will join the RZD board of directors," Akimov told journalists in Novosibirsk on Tuesday. A decision on electing the board's chairman will be made later, he said, adding that former deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich will also have a seat on the board.
Akimov was included on the list of nominees for the RZD board contained in a June 30 government instruction signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
In addition, the list includes the new transport minister, Yevgeny Ditrikh, who replaced Maxim Sokolov in the post in May. Ditrikh's deputy, Alan Lushnikov, who is in charge of rail transport development, will leave the RZD board. It was proposed in a May 10 instruction that he leave the board along with Viktor Tolokonsky, the former presidential envoy in the Siberian Federal District and the former governor of Krasnoyarsk territory.
The Transport Ministry proposal that Ditrikh replace Lushnikov on the board dates to June 6, when the ministry set out this initiative in a letter to the Economic Development Ministry requesting "examination and consent to this in the shortest possible timeframe." That document also proposed that Tolokonsky leave the RZD board.