Moscow offers Beijing reconstruction help

BEIJING, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, visiting Beijing, said Moscow was ready to help Beijing's development program, the Interfax-China news agency reported Tuesday.

"Beijing has adopted an impressive urban development program until the year 2020. Its implementation will require the solution of a big number of questions in which Moscow could be helpful," Luzhkov told reporters Tuesday during his one-day visit.

Luzhkov suggested that Moscow could help Beijing with such problems as water treatment and supplies, transportation and waste disposal.

In return, the Russian capital is ready to invite Chinese investors to build major shopping centers, restaurants, and Chinese and Tibetan medical centers, he said.

In China Luzhkov was received by the head of the People's Political Consultative Conference, Jia Qinglin.

Since becoming mayor in 1992, Luzhkov has overseen a number of highly visible and expensive building projects in Moscow, including an underground shopping mall next to the Kremlin, a covered pedestrian bridge over the Moscow River with shops and restaurants, and the resurrection of a Russian Orthodox cathedral razed during Soviet times.

His current pet project is Moscow City, a business center featuring multiple skyscrapers, which is due to be completed in late 2007.