On February 19, in the conference hall of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, a round table on the theme "Special economic regimes as tools for the development of territories: opportunities, prospects and risks. An example of the Kaliningrad region" was held. It was attended by leading Russian economists, members of the board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the government of the Kaliningrad region. The Regional Development Corporation was represented at the meeting by the General Director Vladimir Zarudny.
The participants of the roundtable discussed the prospects for the development of the economy of the Kaliningrad region in the context of amendments to the law on the Special Economic Zone that came into force on January 1 of this year. They were united in the opinion that the SEZ regime is not a privilege, but an opportunity for effective development of the westernmost region of the country, which has a special geographic and geopolitical significance for the country. At the same time, the main efforts of the regional authorities at the moment should be, first of all, focused on creating business conditions: on developing existing and creating new companies, on forming the necessary components for the growth of investment activity.
Yakov Mirkin, head of the International Capital Markets Department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, expressed the opinion that the Kaliningrad Region "should be a showcase for Russia - quality and life expectancy, level of development and habitat should be no worse than those of neighboring countries". Mirkin proposed to outline the key provisions of the development strategy of the Kaliningrad region. In his opinion, monetization of the region (saturation with money), regional benefits and use of best practices of other regions will facilitate the prosperity of the region. "For the functioning of advanced development", Yakov Mirkin believes, "co-financing from the budgets of other regions, maximum incentives for foreign direct investment and a number of other expedient things are required". Another important thing, according to the expert, could be the transformation of the Kaliningrad region into an international financial center, following the example and by analogy with international financial center "Astana" and international financial center of Dubai. But for this, the analyst believes, "clearly defined territorial boundaries, favorable tax and currency regimes, facilitated visa and migration regimes and a number of other things are needed".
In the opinion of Grigory Bunatyan, the chairman of the Council of the Agency for Regional Economic Development of the Kaliningrad Region, the region is unlikely to "do without creating its own set of development tools", but to implement a successful strategy, a clear feedback between the business community and the state is needed.
The aspect of excessive competition for investors, privileges, special regimes and attention of the federal center was emphasized in his speech by the head of the Kaliningrad region Development Corporation Vladimir Zarudny. "The time to move from competition to cooperation between regions. Another condition for successful attraction of investments is the distribution of powers between the state and business. Business should not be invested in infrastructure - it is completely a watch of the state. We create conditions when the business pays only for technology. Development institutions should be more intelligible for investors, and together with investors we create effective and demanded measures of state support", Vladimir Zarudny underlined.
As a result of the round table, its participants prepared recommendations on the coordination of the work of federal and regional authorities, the development institutions of the Kaliningrad region to attract new investors, as well as the implementation of existing investment and infrastructure projects.