To the emergency zone

The government promises free customs regime for ports

The first competition for the creation of port special economic zones will be held in the fall. This was stated yesterday by the Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Special Economic Zones (RosSEZ) Maxim Bystrov. At the same time, amendments to the law on special zones, introducing a new type of zones - port ones, have so far only passed the first reading in the State Duma. And after the law is adopted, several government regulations will still need to be prepared.

Nevertheless, the official is confident that plans to hold competitions for port special economic zones by the end of this year are realistic. The President spoke about the need to develop ports in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, Mr. Bystrov recalled. So there shouldn't be any delays.

New zones will be created very quickly. The second reading of the bill in the State Duma is scheduled for July 4, and the third reading two days later. In mid-July, it is planned to receive approval of the bill from the Federation Council, after which literally in a couple of months all the preparatory work for holding competitions should be carried out .

Despite the fact that port zones will appear in Russia in just a few months, there is no clarity regarding the selection of applicants and further work. It is assumed that special zones can be created on the territory of sea ports, river ports, and airports. It is quite difficult to imagine uniform criteria by which a general competition for river ports and airports can be held. Logically, there should be a separate competition for each type of port.

On the other hand, only seaports have so far shown active interest in special status. According to Mr. Bystrov, almost everyone is going to submit applications: Novorossiysk, Ust-Luga, Murmansk, Nakhodka, and the Astrakhan port of Olya. At the same time, among river ports, only the Dmitrov river port announced its desire to participate in the competition, and among airports, only Krasnoyarsk. So if a separate competition is announced for each type of port zone, it is not entirely clear who will compete with whom.

However, what benefits winning this competition will bring is also completely unclear. In all other types of zones, and today there are three of them - industrial-production, technology-implementation and tourist-recreational, investors receive infrastructure built at state expense, tax benefits and a special customs regime. But the federal budget for next year does not provide for any spending on port zones.

However, according to Mr. Bystrov, the state treasury may not be needed in this case. “In my opinion, ports do not need state funding: they just need to be given a free customs zone regime,” he believes. “And the ports already have plenty of money. Novorossiysk, for example, has an investment program for $100 million, so how can we help them with several billion rubles from the budget,” explained Mr. Bystrov.

Vera SITNINA