| Moscow and federal builders agreed to work together The Bank of Moscow yesterday entered into a cooperation agreement with the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Communal Services (formerly Gosstroy). We are talking about attracting investment in the modernization of the construction sector and public utilities. Considering that the Bank of Moscow belongs to the Moscow government, experts are talking about reconciliation between the capital and federal construction officials.
The previous leadership of Gosstroy had conflicts with the Moscow government more than once. So, last year, the feds refused to approve the capital's general plan, and also prevented the abolition of construction licenses (which could have strengthened the Moscow construction monopoly). However, Gosstroy was liquidated during the government reform, and its successor - the agency for construction and housing and communal services - became part of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. A new team headed by Vladimir Averchenko came to the agency, which, apparently, managed to find a compromise with their Moscow colleagues and conclude an agreement with the Bank of Moscow.
“The bank intends to actively participate in the financing of various construction projects in the regions of the Russian Federation,” its president Andrei Borodin told reporters. It is assumed that the bank will lend to organizations involved in construction and housing and communal services. Loans are planned to be provided for a period from several months to several years, Mr. Borodin specified, adding that the bank is ready to “annually invest more than one billion dollars in the construction complex of Moscow and the same amount in other regions of Russia.”
For the Bank of Moscow, real estate has generally become a subject of special interest. According to the head of the department for organizing the issue of securities of the bank, Igor Frolovsky, it is planned to create a closed real estate mutual investment fund - its design is already being discussed. “The management model of the fund will be determined by the investor, who will play the main role,” said Mr. Frolovsky, “we are now working to approve the design of the mutual fund, which will be completed in September.” At the same time, a construction company will be named, which will become a partner of the Bank of Moscow. It is obvious that an agreement has already been reached with the relevant agency on this issue.
As a high-ranking official from the Moscow construction complex says, the agreement signed yesterday “is an unofficial act of reconciliation between warring divisions of the same industry; if they start doing the same thing, then there will be no more problems.” He did not specify who else “won’t have problems”: either the federal agency will not interfere with the capital’s builders, or the latter promised to make concessions to the central government. Olga PRYANIKOVA |
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