The development of mono-industry towns depends on the way that socially responsible companies, together with the government, create a comfortable environment for their residents.
This is what the head of the Public Chamber’s Commission for the Economy Real Sector Development,Sergey Grigoriev, said at a round table entitled “The Formation of favourable Investment Climate and Territory Development by Means of Clusters Creation As in the Case of the Republic of Udmurtia”. The event was held in the Public Chamber in Moscow on the 27th of April.
He has also stressed the importance of developing small and medium-size businesses in mono-industry towns, as well as the possibility of receiving credits.
The first deputy president of The Public Chamber for Investment Climate, Nikolay Ostarkov, pointed out that at present 35 projects for mono-industry town development have been submitted to the Economic Development Ministry.
The director of the Control Department at the “Mono-Industry Town Development Fund” non-profit organization, Sergei Aristov, determined three main directions for the Fund’s work.
These are the financing of infrastructure projects, prompting job creation and investments, assisting in the realization of new investment projects at an interest rate of 5% for a period of 8 years, and the training of management teams with the purpose of mono-industry town development. At present, there are about 10 towns under the Fund’s supervision.
The Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce of Udmurtia, Viktor Lashkarev, said that 45.2m roubles have been allocated from the regional and federal budgets in 2015 to support mono-industry towns.
The money is aimed at the creation of a Personnel Training Center and Digital Modelling Center.
The head of the Investment Development Agency of Udmurtia, Ilya Ponomarev, said that in the course of 5 years, the Republic’s lagging behind in terms of investment levels would amount to 20 bln roubles in comparison with the Russian average.
Mono-industry towns are underfinanced. Sarapul, Votkinsk and Glazov are three mono-industry towns. They are inhabited by 20% of the republic’s population, but they receive just 17% of investments.
The main task is to give momentum to the economic diversification of mono-industry towns, he stressed.
Answering a question from the editor-in-chief of Construction.ru, Alexander Gusev, “If an investor expresses his desire to come to you, who will settle the issues connected with the engineering system at the construction site?”, Ilya Ponomarev answered that there is no single approach to this issue in the republic.
In some mono-industry towns the construction sites get the system free from plants within the framework of reorganization and so the infrastructure problems there are minimal, whereas in Sarapul such problems exist and the Republic is trying to solve them.
As for the attraction of foreign investors, there are no formal limitations on this.
In keeping with the theme, the Republic’s Economy Minister, Mikhail Zaytsev, said that municipal funds for small and medium-size businesses have been established in mono-industry towns.
Annually, the Economic Development Ministry of Russia finances this development. In particular, over 115m roubles have been allocated for entrepreneurship stimulation in 2016.
Among the round table participants was the deputy director general of the Commerce Chamber of Udmurtia, Viktor Lyubimov.
