algee himy reply was for sle, who it would seem with epitanman...

algee hi

my reply was for sle, who it would seem with epitanman (spicer's opinion not voiced further) have granted me provisional membership of the tribe (yay for me). sle's reply after mine was i think to you about november AGM, sle didn't say how they knew (2006 AGM was in nov and 2007 AGM was in dec, so it is likely to be one of those two months this year)

it would seem there is no further comment here on SLA's newly unearthed tax issue (which is ok, its not like this is a board meeting, we can't actually affect any outcomes here except the level of our own holdings).

on a small change of tack from taxation, and where this 'economics' thread may have been destined to go, i like how recently there has been talk on HC about "how far under $USD1k a course of ropren will be sold for". i was of the belief that the russian govt paid for the first $1k of any hospital-administered drug a doctor felt a patient needed, i think it might be a bit too early to accept a discount on the $1k (particularly if selling for near $4k in NZ). the shareholder evening presentation of 3rd Sept 08 still listed $1k as the going rate in Russia. The rationales offered for a discount to $1k per course were buyers' market power and ability to pay.

Market power, like Australia's PBS, is possible. But until supply picks up, and if the groundswell from Moscow/St Petersburg doctors is as great as we've been told, I don't see the ministry of health fixing its cost-cutting gaze on this drug. In the short term (next few years) they would be keen to encourage supply growth and discourage diversion of product to foreign patients (if ropren sells for 4x the price outside Russia, it would be too tempting to sell to every country before Russia, and Russia really does not want that). Then there is ability to pay- if total Russian govt spend on drugs is $12billion a year, can they afford $1b for this one drug (at $1k per course and 1 million courses a year).

here is a small bit of economic modelling:
almost entirely due to alcoholism, russian males now have a life expectancy of 59 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Compare this to males in Serbia (i'm picking an arbitrary country here, not one as wealthy as say Japan), where male life expectancy is 72. Take the rate of ageing as of a similar trajectory (that an average 50 year old Russian bloke is in as good physical condition as a 63 year old Serbian), this means that 13 years could be added to the average working man's life. 13 years for 70m Russian men (I'm counting boys in here too, they grow up to drink heavily) = 910 million extra working years for Russia.

Russian per capita GDP of $USD14k per year (i chose the purchasing power parity one to smooth out exchange rates)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
grossed up by 30% (i'm taking labour force participation to be 70%, which is high for even Australia, so this is a very conservative gross up) = $USD18k a year. Multiply by 910 million working years and you get $USD16.4 trillion, for the price of say $70 billion (if on average every Russian male was to get one ropren treatment during their lifetime).

On top of the economic cost-benefit above, there is, well, national pride. Russians, on current trends, will become a minority within the Russian Federation this century (overtaken by Muslims of various nationalities)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5056672.stm
Muslims, while some do imbibe a bit, as a rule are not drunkards. Lowered male life expectancy (yes, coupled with lower birthrate as is occuring across the developed world) adds substantially to this population shrinkage of ethnic Russians. They are a traditionally xenophobic nation, they aint liking this demographic shift one bit.

I think both the economic payoff and this demographic "crisis" is why Vlad Putin is giving SLA land, to fast-track this project to cure millions of bad Russian livers. He knows $1billion a year is a price worth paying hundreds of times over.