44 regions to introduce regional investment standard this year

The First Deputy Prime Minister led an investment work group with 89 regional representatives present. 2023 is scheduled for the full nation-wide implementation of the regional investment standard. Such standardization of investment processes shall facilitate business scaling and secure domestic investment for the regions of the country. This is especially important to relaunch the investment cycle as the country is subject to sanctions.

'45 regions have already implemented the regional investment standard. 44 regions are now to follow. A region's position in the national investment attractiveness ranking is determined by how the responsible staff are selected and whether the investment team is properly formed.  It is important to establish close cooperation with business associations and the Ministry of Economic Development, as well as to get to the core of each tool the standard features, to make them instrumental for the investors. The business has to be informed about the changes, as this will influence the investment attractiveness of each region,' Andrey Belousov stressed. The First Deputy Prime Minister required special attention and support to be delivered to the four new regions of Russia as they implement the investment standard.

The regions will have to develop five tools. The investment declaration describes the development strategy of the region and stresses the commitment of the head of the region to ensuring the business climate improvement. Development agencies are engaged in attracting private investments, supporting projects and consulting entrepreneurs. Investment committees work under the leadership of the head of the region to provide prompt resolution to the controversial issues. The investment map contains information about the territories of the region, its resource base, infrastructure, support measures and tariffs. The set of investment rules contains algorithms for investors and the normative terms for technological connection.

'This is a basic tool that will help each region to boost its investment attractiveness indicators. We think so because we have developed a standard for entrepreneurs together with the business community, i.e. Delovaya Rossiya, Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The regions, which have already introduced the standard, shall continue to improve its tools. WWe shall also continue working with utility providers to cut down the connection terms for business and deliver the permits faster,' says Deputy Minister of Economic Development Murat Keferov.

To top that, RANEPA is training regional investment teams. Another joint project - that of the Ministry of Economic Development and Rosatom - "End-to-end Investment Flow" is aimed at reducing the time and number of documents required to launch an investment projects. The implementation results are to be evaluated by the business. 

'For many regions it was not easy to confirm the implementation of the standard elements last year. This is the evidence that we are far from being formalistic.  Our aim is to identify the systemic problems in the investment processes in the regions and to solve them. It is important to create new production facilities to ensure the national technological independence, and the regional investment standard, as an end-to-end investment mechanism, should become the means to launch a new investment cycle,'  says Nonna Kagramanyan, Vice President, Head of the Executive Committee of Delovaya Rossiya.

'The entire system of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation is involved in this work. It means 150 regional and municipal organizations. We are constantly working with our colleagues and with the Ministry of Economic Development. There is an All-Russian meeting of chambers scheduled, where the new stage of the regional investment standard development shall be presented, said Sergey Katyrin, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"Work is being conducted not only on assessing the implementation of the standard elements but also on a systemic change in the legislation to reduce administrative barriers to business. The RUIE is ready to take an active part in this work, improve methodological recommendations for the implementation of the standard and select the best practices for interacting with investors", stressed Aleksander Shokhin, President of RUIE.

The meeting was also attended by Director of the Department of Labor Productivity, Protection and Promotion of Investments of the Ministry of Economic Development Alexander Molodtsov, Deputy Head of the Secretariat of the First Deputy Prime Minister Ilnar Mirsiyapov, Director of the Initiatives Laboratory of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives Andrey Doroshenko, as well as heads of regions and their specialized deputies from 89 regions.

Source: Ministry of Economic Development, Russian Federation