Translated material
Skyline
The Kaliningrad region presented a development plan for 25 years
At the end of 2006, the Kaliningrad region presented itself in the Federation Council. Kaliningrad has been preparing to present its capabilities at the Chamber of Regions for a long time; the presentation was postponed several times. As a result, they decided to “link” it to the strategy and program for the socio-economic development of the region. These documents, fundamental for future life, were completed by the regional authorities only at the very end of last year. The developers were the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation, the Institute of Urban Economics and the North-West Center for Strategic Research. For their efforts, they received 6 million rubles from the regional budget.The team of Governor Georgy Boos is not a pioneer when it comes to writing a development strategy for the Kaliningrad region. Back in 2003, under Governor Vladimir Yegorov, a similar document was developed with a seven-year planning horizon. This time everything is more serious - the government looked into the future of the region for 25 years at once. This deadline was not taken out of thin air - the law on a special economic zone in the Kaliningrad region will be in force until 2031. Then the region will have to discard this economic “crutch”. Until then, together with federal, regional target and migration programs, it is the law on SEZ (thanks to the late ex-governor Yuri Matochkin, who laid this “foundation”) that will be the core of the region’s development.
Money instead of special status
The current cabinet of ministers has thrown into the back drawer the favorite toy of the previous leadership of the region - the desire to give the region a special status at the federal level (at one time there was even talk of “foreign territory”). Thus, Mr. Egorov’s strategy indicated that the development of the region should be based on the basic principles and directions of federal policy in relation to the exclave. Now this point does not exist (just as the principles themselves have not appeared). Thus, they made it clear to Moscow that the region has no claims to “exclusivity”, don’t let the Kremlin worry.
The idea of giving a special status has been replaced by the simple principle of investing substantial sums from the federal budget in the region. It is expected that by 2016, about 200 billion rubles will be invested from the state treasury into the development of the Kaliningrad region. That is, 20 billion per year. This amount looks fantastic if you look at the region’s budget for next year - it states that the federal center will allocate 4.3 billion rubles to the region. We will add another 1.8 billion for the infrastructural development of the special tourist and recreational zone “Curonian Spit”. Still can't reach twenty...
Catch up with Lithuania and Poland
However, you shouldn’t bother yourself with these calculations. The presentation of any strategic documents on the basis of the Federation Council, as a rule, has no real consequences - it is just an attraction of attention. There is a more serious discussion of strategy and programs in the Russian government. The Kaliningrad region will have to take this exam in January 2007. True, if the federal cabinet of ministers approves everything, this does not mean that the developments of Kaliningrad strategists and experts invited from the “duty” will be immediately adopted. The government receives dozens of different types of concepts from the regions (not all, however, with a 25-year planning horizon). And they are, of course, not fully funded. So, if in reality, after numerous discussions, analyzes and developments, the region receives a federal target program with a clear list of infrastructure facilities and a budget of at least 50 billion rubles. until 2016 - it will be great.
Perhaps then some of the plans of government strategists will come true. For example, it is calculated that by 2016 the average Kaliningrad resident will earn almost 28 thousand rubles monthly. The number is, of course, pleasant. But this, so to speak, is one side of the coin. I would like to know from the government “Nostradamus” about another thing - how much will it cost, for example, to travel on a bus in ten years? If it’s 10 rubles, as it is today, then, of course, one can only rejoice at such a salary. But what if 100?
Real economic processes , as is known, can differ greatly from planned indicators. So planning in detail the future of the region for ten or even twenty-five years at once, while taking the current state of affairs as a starting point, is strange, to say the least.
Nevertheless, Governor Georgy Boos, speaking at a meeting of the Federation Council, again voiced his long-standing slogan: “The Kaliningrad region, in terms of the level of well-being of its residents, should reach a similar level to neighboring countries - Lithuania and Poland.” True, the head of the region did not specify whether the neighbors will take a “break” in their development and wait for the Kaliningraders, or whether the residents of the Russian exclave will have to pick up their feet and run, run, run...
A brazen idea
The Kaliningrad government proposes to focus on two areas in the development of the region. The first is European outsourcing. Its essence is that the region opens up as much as possible for Western investors who locate their production facilities on its territory. Thus, the region is being integrated into European technological chains. They tried to do this ten years ago; then only the automobile manufacturing corporations BMW and General Motors took the bait, setting up their factories in the region. The second is macro-regional leadership. Here it is expected to take first positions in the entire Baltic region (part of north-west Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Scandinavia, Germany). The government does not hide the fact that this idea is “brazen.” The growth points in this case are shipbuilding, energy, agriculture, transport, tourism.
The two directions have common and significant disadvantages - infrastructure, which, in fact, does not exist, as well as the almost complete lack of competent and inexpensive labor resources.
Which Western investor will build his own plant if it is still unknown how much gas the Kaliningrad region will receive? The situation is similar with electricity. The government assures that the second and third power units of CHPP-2 will be built. But in this case, it is they who will “eat up” the lion’s share of the blue fuel supplied to the region. What if the Belarusian “father” Lukashenko again becomes capricious and shuts off the transit valve? Therefore, the North-Western Nuclear Power Plant appears as a safety net option in government strategic documents, the construction of which in the Kaliningrad region may begin in 2011. But if the energy problem can be solved, the labor problem will still not disappear. The material demands of Kaliningrad specialists are quite at the level of neighboring countries. And expensive workers are not profitable for business. An investor would be better off building a plant in Lithuania or Poland, where the prices are the same, but the guarantees and standards are European Union.
In short, there are many such basic infrastructure issues (and there is also an international factor, problems with transit, the prospect of expanding the Schengen zone to the Baltic countries). And local officials cannot yet give answers to them. Because no matter how hard they try to be independent, a lot depends on Moscow.
But the good news is that Kaliningrad officials are at least thinking about developing some kind of long-term general line, which, in theory, all subsequent political elites should adhere to. If Mr. Boos suddenly decides to leave the Amber Coast, his successor will not have to wonder what to do with this area? However, Governor Boos’s predecessors, when adopting the region’s development strategy until 2010, counted on the same continuity of course.