On 4th June 2010 the Expert RA rating agency announced in the framework of the National Corporate Governance Rating, RID Expert RA, that the corporate governance score given to OJSC North-West Telecom earlier was confirmed at the NCGS 8 Level, “ Developed Practice of Corporate Governance”.

The score “8” means that the Company has low risks of corporate governance , observes the requirements of the Russia n legislation in the field of corporate governance , and follows most recommendation s of the Russia n Code of Corporate Conduct and certain recommendations of the international best practices of corporate governance.

According to analyst s, the corporate governance system of OJSC North-West Telecom is rapidly develop ing due to the strategic initiatives of the company’s management and shareholders. OJSC N.W.Telecom observes all norms of corporate governance in the field of shareholders’ rights protection, activities of the management and control bodies, information disclosure and taking into account the interests of parties concerned – participants of corporate relations.

In the opinion of analysts, the highest score must be given to the level of disclosing financial and non-financial information on the operation of the Company, which is published on the highly informative and regularly updated corporate web site www.nwtelecom.ru , in annual and quarterly reports and other forms of reporting.

The activities of OJSC N.W.Telecom in the field of corporate social responsibility has been specially noted in the report: the Company implements various social project s for its employees , members of their families and provide s sponsorship and charity aid.

The important positive changes have been noted in the appraisal of OJSC N.W.Telecom’s corporate governance, including:

- the publication of the first corporate social report;

- reduced time of IFRS reporting certification;

- the start of disclosing unaudited quarterly IFRS reporting;

- the rotation of the auditor in 2009, which has ensured a high degree of independence and impartiality in the audit of financial statement s reliability.

According to experts of the agency, reorganization of Svyazinvest is being held in the interests of the minority and majority holders of common and preferred shares of OJSC North-West Telecom and without any breach of their rights. After the reorganization , the holders of the common and preferred securities of OJSC N.W.Telecom will receive highly liquid securities of the united Rostelecom, which will be included in the calculation of all key stock exchange indices. Besides, the report notes that the Provisions on the Procedure of Using Insider Information in OJSC Svyazinvest has taken effect starting from 1st April 2010, which shows a high standard of corporate governance of OJSC Svyazinvest, the main shareholder of OJSC North-West Telecom.

You may read about the latest changes in the results of the National Corporate Governance Rating on the web site of the agency: https://www.raexpert.ru/ratings/corporate/ . The full report on the rating is published on the web site of OJSC N.W.Telecom in the section “To investors and shareholders/ Ratings”.