Titan Valley

There will be more special economic zones

By the end of this year, several more special economic zones should appear in Russia. As Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of the Federal Agency for the Management of Special Economic Zones (RosSEZ), said yesterday, the agency expects to hold a second competition for the creation of an industrial production zone in the remaining two and a half months of the year.

Irkutsk and Rostov have already announced their desire to take part in the new competition. In addition, on Wednesday, at the conference “Special Economic Zones - New Opportunities for Investors,” an application for the creation of an industrial production zone in the city of Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, was presented. Within the zone with the beautiful name “Titanium Valley,” according to Vladislav Tetyukhin, General Director of the VSMPO-Avisma Corporation, who presented the project, it is planned to create a high-tech cluster for the needs of aerospace, shipbuilding, energy, ground transport, mechanical engineering, and non-ferrous metallurgy. On the territory of the “Titanium Valley” it is planned to locate and develop machine-building enterprises that produce finished products from titanium and its alloys, aluminum, magnesium, and nickel alloys. The Russian representative office of Boeing has repeatedly stated its great interest in this project. In addition, according to Mr. Tetyukhin, a number of other major foreign corporations, such as Yamaha Motor Co, Rolls-Royce, and Snecma, have confirmed their interest in organizing production in the zone in Verkhnyaya Salda. The estimated volume of investments by residents, Mr. Tetyukhin said, is about 12 billion rubles.

Meanwhile, next week the results of the competition for tourist and recreational zones will be summed up. Two, three, and maybe even five new zones of this type will appear in Russia. We can already guess which regions will have the opportunity to develop tourism on preferential terms. The greatest activity, according to Mr. Bystrov, was shown by the Krasnodar Territory, the regions around Lake Baikal (Irkutsk region and Buryatia), as well as Altai. According to Maxim Bystrov, their applications are the most developed. (True, earlier there were concerns that the Krasnodar Territory was unlikely to become a SEZ, since it receives significant federal funding as part of the program to nominate the city of Sochi as candidates for hosting the Winter Olympics).

Let us remind you that 28 applications were submitted for the competition for tourist and recreational zones, ten of which were rejected immediately due to insufficient documents. According to Mr. Bystrov, several of the remaining applications are also not being considered, since it turned out that they received a negative conclusion from the environmental assessment. And this document is key for this type of zone, because they are located in specially protected areas.

The official recalled that the 2007 budget allocated 1.1 billion rubles for tourist and recreational zones. If several applications are selected at once, these funds will not be enough, Mr. Bystrov believes. According to him, the creation of infrastructure for just one zone will require 3-4 billion rubles. for three years. “From here we can figure out that we will ask for additional funding,” said Maxim Bystrov.

He also said that by the end of 2006 a law on port-type health protection facilities could be adopted. (However, the State Duma says that only in 2007). Port areas, according to experts, will require capital investments of at least 100 million euros.

Vera SITNINA