City Hall construction complexes

Moscow's main investment programs will be aimed at construction

In the next three years, capital economists, apparently, intend to bring construction companies out of the crisis, first of all, in the hope that construction will pull other sectors of the economy along with it. At least, as Marina Ogloblina, head of the Moscow Department of Economic Policy and Development, said at a press conference yesterday, construction will continue to be a priority sector for financial investments in the city. “The draft program for the construction of housing with the necessary engineering infrastructure for 2011-2013 provides 222 billion rubles,” said Ms. Ogloblina.

According to the Department of Economic Policy and City Development, the draft budget for next year, recently approved by the Moscow government, provides that a significant part of the targeted investment program will be spent on construction projects. “In 2011, the commissioning of housing at the expense of the city budget is planned in the amount of 616.7 thousand square meters, 37 billion rubles are provided for this. in the budget and during the execution of the budget, another 13.5 billion rubles will be found,” the official statement says.

In addition, according to Ms. Ogloblina, the capital’s authorities are doing everything possible to return extra-budgetary investments to the industry. The mayor’s office expects that the updated general plan will give enterprises in the city construction complex new opportunities for development and will allow them to return to the “previous volumes” of capital investment in a vital industry. According to Marina Ogloblina, if last year, when distributing city properties at land auctions, officials had to literally wait for investors, recently construction sites have again become in demand. In total, by the end of the year, officials hope to sell 175 new objects at auction. “Investment activity has intensified, more and more owners have begun to submit proposals for the implementation of their intentions,” Ms. Ogloblina said self-encouragingly. According to her, investors are returning to those projects that were stopped due to the crisis, and “where everything stood is beginning to come to life.”

However, according to the head of the department of economic policy and city development, although the acute phase of the crisis has passed, the next three years are unlikely to become a period of active growth of the city’s economy in general and the construction industry in particular. “For the next two years we will not be able to say that the situation will be much more stable,” Ms. Ogloblina warned. Therefore, when distributing funds, officials will continue to maneuver the “pharmacy scales” of the city budget in order not only to comply with social obligations to citizens, but also to “give impetus to the development of the construction industry.” “I don’t want to be a pessimist, but no one has ever come out of a crisis in a year,” said Marina Ogloblina.

It is noteworthy that the construction industry, which enjoys special priority among city officials, contributed only about 10-12% to the city’s revenue base, even in the so-called fat years. True, Ms. Ogloblina, arguing for the guardianship of this particular area, referred to the fact that construction is connected with a host of other industries: transport, chemical, metallurgical, etc. However, as she emphasized, answering a question from Vremya Novostei, the Moscow economy itself cannot be called dependent on the construction industry. In addition, according to city economists, the injection into the construction industry is only part of the budget. “We are interested in the development of knowledge-intensive industries and industries with high added value. The city budget allocates significant funds to science,” said Marina Ogloblina. True, the line of expenditures in the 2011 budget for applied and scientific research, as well as for the development of knowledge-intensive industries, is significantly “shorter” than the construction line. Only about 5 billion rubles have been allocated for these purposes next year.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO