Translated material
Do as he does
Far Eastern governors are recommended to follow Roman Abramovich
Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Far Eastern Federal District Kamil Iskhakov held a council of heads of executive and legislative authorities of the district in Anadyr. Such meetings, according to a tradition established during the work of the first Far Eastern plenipotentiary representative Konstantin Pulikovsky, are held once every three months.Usually, regional heads were received by presidential representatives at their residence in Khabarovsk. Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich was a rather rare guest at such councils. The head of Chukotka and the owner of the British football club Chelsea explained his absence by a catastrophic lack of time. This time, Mr. Abramovich himself acted as host of the governor's summit. But the meeting with colleagues in Anadyr was ignored by the heads of two Far Eastern regions. Primorsky Governor Sergei Darkin sent a deputy in his place, and the Chairman of the Government of the Khabarovsk Territory, Viktor Ishaev, who was expected in Chukotka a week ago, at the last moment refused the trip “to the ends of the world.” Mr. Ishaev preferred meeting with colleagues to prepare for the international economic forum scheduled for early October, which is to be held in Khabarovsk.
Contrary to established tradition, Plenipotentiary Representative Iskhakov began the gubernatorial council not with the usual summing up of the socio-economic development of the district, but with a detailed acquaintance of the heads of the Far Eastern territories with the situation in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Just the day before, Kamil Iskhakov, together with Governor Abramovich, visited a number of remote areas of Chukotka, where they discussed a program for the further development of the district. At a promising deposit of ore gold under Mount Dome in the Bilibinsky district, Roman Abramovich, not without pride, reported that the enterprise (the mine will produce the first batches of the precious metal only in 2008) has already brought the treasury more than $59 million in tax deductions and created about a thousand jobs in the area . Mr. Abramovich showed the plenipotentiary a modern mining town: gyms, a mini-cinema, modern houses built using the latest technologies.
Impressed by what he saw in Chukotka, Kamil Iskhakov told the Far Eastern governors that “six years ago there was devastation in the district, but now people have jobs, housing, social infrastructure, and the caring hand of Governor Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich is visible everywhere.”
Compared to 2000, the volume of gross regional product in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug has increased fivefold. Almost all sectors of the economy emerged from the crisis back in 2004. The plenipotentiary also noted that the northern regions, such as the Koryak Autonomous Okrug and the Magadan Region, have very similar leading sectors of the economy. Therefore, it can serve as an example for them of how the reorganization of economic sectors was carried out in Chukotka. In response to this remark, one of those present complained that none of the Far Eastern subjects of the federation has such impressive financial flows as Chukotka has thanks to the governorship of a famous billionaire. On this score, Kamil Iskhakov noted: “Many say that the life of the region can be easily improved, the main thing is that there are the same financial flows as Chukotka. I draw the attention of the governors to the fact that it is your responsibility to ensure that legal entities with large capital are registered on the territory of your subject of the federation. In addition, now we need to decide how to attract investors to Chukotka itself instead of Sibneft. Let us recall that the oil giant brought in at least 6 billion rubles. to the budget of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug annually. After the sale of the company, the territory’s management developed a scheme to attract new investors to Chukotka, who would compensate for the lost revenues of the local treasury.
It is noteworthy that the level of industrial production for the past six months in Chukotka, as reported by the plenipotentiary's press secretary Evgeniy Anoshin, nevertheless decreased by 11%. However, in a number of other Far Eastern territories the decline in this indicator turned out to be even more noticeable. In the Magadan region, production volumes decreased by 20%, in the Khabarovsk Territory and Koryakia - by 15%. Such a significant drop is due, according to experts, to a decrease in the production of precious and rare earth metals. The industrial collapse in the Far Eastern region as a whole was compensated for thanks to Sakhalin, where a 56% increase in industrial production was achieved in the process of implementing international projects in the field of oil and gas production, as well as certain successes of the Primorye economy (23.5% growth).
According to governors, the main constraint on industrial development on the eastern outskirts of Russia remains excessively high energy tariffs compared to the Russian average. As Kamchatka Governor Mikhail Mashkovtsev noted, one kilowatt-hour goes to industrial enterprises of the peninsula at a record price for Russia - more than four rubles. It is extremely difficult to talk about attracting capital to the Kamchatka economy in such conditions.
This situation is quite natural. The energy systems of most regions of the Far East are isolated from each other. As noted by the President of the Republic of Sakha, Vyacheslav Shtyrov, a project is currently being developed to unite individual energy-rich regions of Yakutia and connect them to the unified energy system of Russia. This will make it possible to create safer conditions for supplying electricity to consumers in remote areas of the republic. It will also allow part of the excess energy to be exported or used in large energy-intensive industries that should be created in the Far East and Eastern Siberia in the near future. But this will require laying thousands of kilometers of power lines across Mari and the taiga.
According to the plans of RAO UES, the Yakut energy systems and Magadanenergo should be integrated with the unified energy system of Russia by 2012. In the meantime, the discussion at the governor's council in Anadyr was mainly about equalizing tariffs for electrical and thermal energy to the average Russian level through subventions provided by the Russian government to the Far Eastern regions. As Kamil Iskhakov assured the governors, the Chairman of the Russian Government, Mikhail Fradkov, told him “that the 26 billion rubles needed for this purpose. will be found already in 2007.”
According to the plenipotentiary, the mechanism for equalizing tariffs is simple: it will be a direct subsidy to consumers based on the electricity they consume based on the results of each month. Governors and mayors of large cities must, as soon as possible, audit the use of electricity meters for legal entities and individuals.
In addition, Plenipotentiary Iskhakov called on the governors of the Far East to begin preparing the issue of building oil refineries along the route of the future Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. “We need to do everything to ensure that Russia trades not only raw materials, but also petroleum products,” Mr. Iskhakov emphasized. According to the governor of the Amur region, Leonid Korotkov, one of the first such projects is the construction of an oil refinery near the village of Berezovka, Ivanovsky district. The future enterprise will process up to 5 million tons of crude oil per year, and it is planned to build it with the participation of Chinese capital. China should also become the main buyer of finished products.
The position of the Khabarovsk governor Viktor Ishaev, who is absent from the Anadyr council, is to involve existing enterprises - the Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk oil refineries - in processing oil supplied via the ESPO. But for this to happen, significant changes must be made to the oil pipeline laying project, according to Mr. Ishaev. And the end point of the pipeline could not be Primorye, but the port of Vanino in the Khabarovsk Territory.