Offshore "Siberia"

Pip over the taiga. One of the first decisions of the new government may affect the fate of the state corporation to develop Eastern Siberia and the Far East. The decree on its creation was prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development, but the Ministry of Finance categorically opposed - the question hung in the air. The development options were studied by The New Times

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For the first time, the idea of ​​creating a state corporation for the development of Siberia and the Far East was announced at the end of January then the head of the Ministry of Emergencies Sergey Shoigu - at a meeting with then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Shoigu proposed to transfer all the territories from the western borders of the Krasnoyarsk Territory to the maintenance of the new structure to the most eastern borders of the country - Sakhalin, Kamchatka and Kusil. Putin supported the idea and instructed the Ministry of Economic Development to prepare the draft relevant law. By April, the project of creating a state -owned company (Dmitry Medvedev, as you know, does not like the term “state corporation”) was ready, after which the new prime minister in the course of his statement in the State Duma said that the development of Siberia and the Far East will become one of the main priorities of his government.
Dalstroy of the XXI century

The bill, even with a runaway reading, cannot but cause sacred trepidation. It is envisaged to create a certain global structure with registration in one of the centers of the region (presumably in Vladivostok, it is also planned to place the headquarters), which is not subordinated to the federal government, but directly to the president. Only the Accounts Chamber will be able to control it. The activities of the state -owned company should cover 16 eastern regions in which it receives exclusive rights to select “priority investment projects” (PIP). For a business project, which has received such a status, state-owned company at its own expense would provide all the necessary transport and energy infrastructure, and this is the biggest problem when developing remote deposits in the region.
Moreover, officials are ready to close all the work on the preparation of design documentation, attract external investments, coordinate the conditions for joining networks and even legal protection of pipes. Moreover, on the conditions completely fantastic for Russia: if during the month of the department they did not send comments on the project prepared by the state -owned company, he is considered agreed.
The state -owned company was supposed to receive a generous subsidy from the state - all income from the money management of the National Welfare Fund in the next ten years * * Now in the Fund $ 89.2 billion, in 2011 it received an income of about $ 5.9 billion! In addition, it will be transferred to her state assets of a number of large companies (such as Russian Railways, Alrosa, Inter RAO) in the amount of more than half a trillion rubles. Plus a natural contribution: a state -owned company without competitions would receive the rights to the use of subsoil, forest and land from the state and even transfer them further - pipes. Moreover, the state would not receive any money for this.

In order to save the new structure from the concerns of the lands needed by it (and these costs are very significant in the construction of roads and other infrastructure), the bill introduces the concept of “public easement”: at the request of the state -owned company, local authorities oblige the owners of the plots to allow her to carry out work, cut the forest, build structures, etc. At the same time, the board for easement is much lower than if the site had to be redeemed.
State -owned companies and pipes, as in Skolkovo, do not pay VAT, income taxes, property and land. And in one of the early versions of the bill it was even proposed to reduce the term for the prisoners involved in her work by one and a half times. But the associations with Dalstroy * * the state trust in road and industrial construction in the Verkhnyaya Kolyma area, whose labor force in the 30-40s. The XX century were the prisoners of the Gulag. They became too obvious, and this item disappeared. Finally, the state -owned company could transport the employees to the state of work to the public account, they would receive a budget allowance for the arrangement. And migrants working for a state -owned company could quickly get a residence permit, and then citizenship.

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The Shoigu project turned almost 60% of the country's territory into a large offshore zone, partially free from the laws of the Russian Federation

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Offshore country
Despite the lobbying of Shoigu, Putin’s support and the diligence of the Ministry of Economic Development, the idea of ​​a new state -owned company suddenly came across a categorical disagreement with her of the Ministry of Finance. Still: the project turned almost 60% of the country's territory into a large offshore zone, partially free from the laws of the Russian Federation.
In a letter from the head of the Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov addressed to the First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov itself, the form of the state corporation is described as “generally hopeless”. Siluanov and the powers that are proposed to endow the state -owned company were embarrassed. He noted that its creation "will require a large -scale adjustment of the current legislation, a complication of the structure of public administration, a decrease in the efficiency and transparency of budget expenditures will occur." In the implementation of the idea of ​​Shoigu, he sees a dangerous precedent for other regions with an insufficient level of socio-economic development.
“The creation of a special tax regime for most of the Russian territory is risky in terms of budget stability,” said Igor Nikolaev, director of the Department of Strategic Analysis of the FBK company. - After all, the government could not balance the budget in the first quarter at the cost of a barrel $ 120. At the same time, 80% of the government departments in Russia are carried by the carried out, because these are social obligations to state employees, state orders of the defense order, and so on. From this point of view, the position of the Ministry of Finance is absolutely understandable: to create a vast territory on which the Tax Code will not operate is absurd. ”
“Tax preferences are not the main obstacle that restrains the development of the regions,” says Alexei Vedev, director of the Center for Structural Studies of the Institute for Economic Policy, believes. - The main problem is institutional, that is, the lack of competition, an unsatisfactory business climate. And you will not solve this problem by the creation of another public structure. ” The emergence of a special territory within Russia is unjustified, the expert believes. “The experience of special economic zones has shown that companies left them from taxes, but did not create foci of economic growth,” Vedaev recalls.
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According to the last rumors, the former speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov claims for the role of a “strong personality” for the eastern project

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Fact or "not a fact"?

The fate of the state corporation will become known soon - as soon as the formation of a new government ends. This was indicated by the press secretary of Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov, noticing: "It is not the fact that it will be created at all."
Moreover, the main interest - Sergey Shoigu - was at that time employed in a completely different place - the governor of the Moscow region. How he hinted in an interview with “Vedomosti” of May 14, the acting First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, the bill was written specifically to the ex-head of the Ministry of Emergencies: “I believed that this law should be written with an understanding of which group of people will manage the project. For the Far Eastern project, outstanding people are needed ... ”As a result, people found another territory, 225 times less - the Moscow region, and this, according to Shuvalov,“ conscientious provocation ”became unnecessary.
However, according to the last rumors, the former speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov claims for the role of a “strong personality” for the eastern project. Perhaps the scale and appetites of state-owned companies will be severely cut out, and it will be created on the basis of Vnesheconombank-a universal state instrument to solve any folk economic problems. Web has a “daughter” - the Fund for the Development of the Far East and the Baikal region created in January with a capital of 500 million rubles. Over the next two to three years, the bank is ready to give the Fund loans for 70 billion rubles, which will allow the latter to guarantee creditors to the implementation of projects in an amount five times more. Actually, the fund is already doing exactly what Shoigu was going to do - he selects projects and is going to present them in two months at the APEC summit in Vladivostok.

Large projects in need of infrastructure are interested in implementing Evraz Group, Rusal, Norilsk Nickel and other raw materials companies in the region. Therefore, the VEB easily found mutual understanding with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), where the Coordinating Council in the Far Eastern District is headed by the chairman of the Board of Directors of Evraz Group Alexander Abramov. The RSP, of course, also claims to be preferences, but much more modest than the state corporation: tax holidays at an early stage of implementation, a reduced tax on mineral extraction and the state compensation for the construction of infrastructure when the projects begin to work.
In this form, the “Shoigu idea”, of course, raises much less questions. But they still remain - for example, what infrastructure should the state redeem, and which is better to leave in private property (without compensation from the state)? And why not provide business projects with tax holidays at an early stage of implementation throughout the country? Agreements on this between companies and tax authorities are ordinary world practice. And finally, it is completely not obvious that the eastern part of the country needs to stimulate more than, for example, an endangered central Russia.

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Vladimir Ardaev participated in the preparation of the material