Siemens AG, doing telecommunications and nuclear power work in Russia, says it will cut staff there because orders are low and no cash is available to pay for big new projects: We have to slim down, send expatriate staff home ahead of schedule and cut down on Russian staff levels, the local representative told Reuter, but did not say how many of the firm’s 500 employees in Russia and Ukraine would lose their jobs; he said a planned Western aid programme to upgrade Russia’s ailing nuclear power stations had stalled because of doubts over who would pay for the plan; Siemens has invested about $64m on seven joint ventures in Russia and one in Ukraine but said it had no orders or means of financing them.
