The project will promote operation prerequisites of the soap stone industry in the whole area of occurrence of soap stone in eastern Finland and in Karelia in the border region. The increasing demand will be responded by focusing on the search for new stone types and on quantitative and qualitative studies of the occurrences as well as on getting the new occurrences to production. The project will increase the knowledge and skills of utilising new soap stone occurrences through co-operation between cross-border expert organisations. Measures to create additional investment justifications for raw material based production include: research on production related to the known occurrences, search for new occurrences and study on their applicability to production. Achievements: The project found sew soapstone deposits, some of which have good potential to be utilised as production sites. Several new soapstone deposits were found in the area between Huutoniemi Saarikyl. The project completed a preliminary assessment on the quantity and quality of the stone at the most interesting sites. Raw material potential was assessed in Russian Karelia and research methods presented and compared at, for example, different types of seminars / field seminars. As a result of the project, the development process for utilising the new natural stone raw materials, including soapstone, in Russian Karelia has been strengthened. Examples include the cooperation with the Developing the Networking and Material Facilities of Stone Sector Enterprises project implemented by the town of Kuhmo and the Kosstone project funded by the Tacis programme. The project produced a plan for commercial cooperation and training needs for 2004 and began work on the database, which would include the shared building stone deposits and products of Kainuu and Russian Karelia. The development work started in this project was continued in the Soapstone in Kainuu and in the Border Region of Karelia project.