"By the will of the Almighty and the President"

The head of Chechnya invites foreign investors

President of the Chechen Republic Alu Alkhanov said yesterday that he has no plans to leave his post. “It’s the press that likes to speculate that I’ll leave tomorrow or they’ll send me away,” he said at a press conference in Moscow. “I said before and I say today: this is the will of the Almighty and the President of the Russian Federation,” he explained.

In the meantime, the higher powers have not shown themselves in any way, Mr. Alkhanov intends to focus on developing the economy of the long-suffering republic. The leadership of Chechnya, despite the still difficult situation for business in the territory under its jurisdiction, is counting on a real investment boom in the coming years. As Mr. Alkhanov said, the most favorable conditions will be created for investors. “We have 23 projects with specific investment passports, detailed studies and examination,” the president said. The most promising of them are four: a program for the introduction of broadband wireless networks worth 882 million rubles, a project to build a glass packaging plant worth 828 million rubles, a cannery worth 1.7 billion and the restoration of a reinforced concrete products plant, for which the investor must spend 450 million rubles

Any doubts that arose about the presence of a large number of investors interested in investing in such a difficult region were immediately dismissed by Alu Alkhanov. He said that two large investment projects with the participation of Russian regions have already been implemented in the region. In particular, with the help of specialists from St. Petersburg, the Electropult plant was built in Grozny. This enterprise, according to the head of the republic, has already received a package of orders from the gas industry for 2007 totaling about 3 billion rubles. In addition, together with the Moscow government, a plant for the production of elevators has been opened in Chechnya, “the republic itself is in great need of them, so there will be no problems with the sale of the products of this plant,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the first foreign investor will appear in Chechnya in November. As Alu Alkhanov proudly reported, an agreement was reached on the construction of a fish farming enterprise jointly with the Chinese. The project was financed by the State Development Bank of China.

In addition, according to the President of Chechnya, the leadership of the republic has received a number of investment proposals from partners from Germany and other European countries, “but so far there are no specific programs at the implementation stage.” “The leadership of Chechnya will do everything to ensure that a special economic zone is opened on the territory of the republic as soon as possible,” assured Alu Alkhanov.

But, apparently, not really counting on the goodwill of outsiders, the Chechen authorities are looking for ways to make money on their own, for example, through oil production. Commenting on the difficult relationship with the Rosneft company, Mr. Alkhanov said: “I would not like to draw any conclusions, since groups are working to consider our proposals. I believe they will be considered, we consider them quite fair.” It should be recalled that “fair proposals” consist of transferring the license for oil production to the authorities of the republic. Moreover, last week the head of the Republic's Ministry of Industry and Energy, Amadiy Temishev, already stated that by the middle of next year the license for oil production in the republic would be transferred to local authorities. According to this official, “the oil complex of the Chechen Republic is being barbarically plundered, oil production is proceeding in violation of all technologies, wells are flooded.” But the point is not in production technology, but in petrodollars. According to Mr. Temishev, “Rosneft receives from Chechen oil generated about 25 billion rubles in profit, and the republic’s budget does not receive even a tenth of this amount. If the oil and gas sector operated entirely in Chechnya, the region would not have to be subsidized.”

Vera SITNINA