Arguments against facts

They are trying to “detach” regional politics from the global economy

In defiance of the crisis, the Ministry of Regional Development and the State Duma Committee on Federation Affairs and Regional Policy gathered to spur the socio-economic development of Russian regions by improving legislation. This was discussed at yesterday's round table on issues of socio-economic development of the regions.

“The specificity of the current stage of development is that we are entering a strategy for long-term regional development, the basis of which is Concept 2020,” such a healthy thesis was proclaimed in the opening speech by Deputy Minister of Regional Development Dmitry Aratsky. In response to this, the president of the Center for Strategic Research, Mikhail Dmitriev, tried to bring his colleagues back to earth: “We are all forced to work on long-term programs that ignore the fact of the crisis.” Mr. Dmitriev emphasized that the state of affairs in the financial markets forces us to change “macroeconomic forecasts, investment plans, budgets,” and proposed to engage in “adjustment of scenarios, replacing optimistic options with more realistic and pessimistic ones.” “We now face not the problem of economic overheating, as was the case until the middle of this year,” he exhorted the optimists, “but the question of effective coordination in curtailing investment projects. So that if the construction of a mine is suspended, there is no need to lay a railway there that has become unnecessary.”

However, the round table participants did not heed Mr. Dmitriev, and the entire subsequent discussion was conducted based on pre-crisis realities. Those present unanimously spoke out in favor of increasing the revenue base of the constituent entities of the federation and municipalities, as well as, in general, in favor of giving them greater independence, as opposed to the general trend of the last eight years. Dmitry Aratsky called on “to eliminate the unacceptable situation where the regional authorities are responsible for all issues of the development of the territory, but cannot influence it.” There were also calls to improve the system of interbudgetary relations: as the auditor of the Accounts Chamber Sergei Ryabukhin noted, today, on average, only a third of the income of a constituent entity of the federation remains in the regional budget, and two-thirds is taken by the federal center in order to return 7-8% back in the process of redistribution of funds. .

However, when it came to discussing specific measures, opinions were divided. Dmitry Aratsky proposed to “consider the possibility of introducing a real estate tax” to replenish regional budgets. Chairman of the Economics Committee of the Volgograd Regional Administration Alexander Plotnikov immediately refused this generous gift: “In order to collect 1 ruble in the village. property tax, we will spend 5-6 rubles.” Instead, Mr. Plotnikov put forward another idea: “Let’s give the value added tax to where this value is created!” And the director of the Center for Fiscal Policy, Galina Kurlyandskaya, called on “not to assign income tax to municipal budgets as the most unstable.”

As a result, the round table participants recommended that the government accelerate the adoption of the Concept for Improving Regional Policy , as well as develop and submit to the State Duma a draft law “On State Forecasting and Socio-Economic Development.” Answering a Vremya Novostey correspondent when asked whether the financial crisis would interfere with these plans, Mr. Aratsky said: “We are taking measures to prevent the fire from breaking out.”

However, judging by the materials of the Ministry of Regional Development itself, the fire in the province, if not blazing, is already smoldering in some places. Over the past four years, the number of regions with a low level of development has grown from 16 to 28. The group of outsiders includes, in particular, the republics of the Southern Federal District - Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Dagestan, Kalmykia, North Ossetia, Karachay-Cherkessia and Ingushetia, which ranks the very last place on the all-Russian list. In these federal subjects, GRP per capita is less than 50% of the national average. The leaders were Moscow, Tyumen and Sakhalin regions, where the level of GRP exceeds the Russian average by two to three times.

Natalia ROZHKOVA