A National Business Plan for the Far East

2 September 2021

A National Business Plan for the Far East

KEY CONCLUSIONS

Far East development programmes increase housing sales and migration population growth

“Our top achievement over the last two years is that the migration outflow of the population in Yakutia has stopped for the first time in the post-Soviet period. In 2020 and 2019, people did not leave Yakutia. There were more who came. Our migration growth last year was 6,000 people, and young people make up 33% of the population of Yakutia,” Head of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Aisen Nikolayev.

“In the Far East, over the seven months of this year, there has been a significant increase overall in the applications for the registration of equity participation agreements per day. Compared to last year, there was an increase of 30% for the same period,” Deputy Head of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre, and Cartography Yelena Martynova.

Not all the goals of the national programme for the development of the Far East were achieved

“In 2020, the indicators were exceeded for 21 measures of the national programme, while about 15 measures were not completed. These mainly include measures in social infrastructure: sports facilities, medical and obstetric stations, and preschool educational institutions. So far, these areas are lagging behind the most,” Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Marat Shamyunov.

“We have minor lags in terms of financing and the ability to implement all the tasks and goals for the facilities, including capital infrastructure. This is also more in the social, science, culture, and healthcare sectors. There are small lags in the volumes we need,” Deputy Minister for the Development of the Far East and Arctic Marat Shamyunov.

PROBLEMS

There aren’t enough building materials and labour to build affordable housing

“We need to develop the building materials industry. No other territory of our country has such unprecedented mortgage rates for young families in the primary market. A mortgage of 2% on the primary market, of course, has provided guaranteed demand for several years. But the regions are already responding to this demand with a large number of building permits,” Russian Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing, and Utilities Nikita Stasishin.

“Who’s going to build everything? There aren’t enough people. There aren’t enough qualified specialists. They need to be brought in. But as soon as they are brought in, the problem will arise of how to keep them. And we need to create living conditions so that it is interesting to work and live,” President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin.

There aren’t enough young people in the Far East; individual programmes are needed to attract them

“The question has arisen of highlighting the youth section in the national programme for the development of the Far East,” Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Marat Shamyunov.

“We’re talking about securing young people in the region where they were born. If everything was fine with the economy, then everything would be fine with us both in terms of the social sector and keeping young people. So, one of the tasks is to create conditions for more active investment activity,” President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin.

“Under no circumstances should we just be chasing square metres. We need to create an absolutely new quality living environment, so that people live here, move here, and give birth to children here,” Russian Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing, and Utilities Nikita Stasishin.

SOLUTIONS

Major investments to modernize the industry of the Far East

“Over the past five years, RusHydro has invested RUB 253 billion in the infrastructure of the Far East, which was spent on the implementation of major projects. More than a gigawatt of installed capacity has been commissioned in five years. There hasn’t been such a commissioning rate in the energy sector since Soviet times. We are refurbishing the energy sector in all regions where we have a presence throughout the Far East. Over the past five years, we have commissioned the Blagoveshchenskaya CHPP, Yakutskaya TPP-2, Sakhalin TPP-2, and Sovetskaya Gavan CHPP in the Khabarovsk Territory,” RusHydro Member of the Board and First Deputy General Director Sergey Kirov.

Simplify the regulatory framework that impedes business development in the region

"[We need to] reduce mandatory requirements for building codes and regulations by a third, and this already amounts to several trillion roubles of additional investment resources because the construction time is reduced,” President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin.

“Any change in the density, number of storeys of buildings, and the type of permitted use of land plots is sometimes interpreted as an excess of official powers. And without this, the implementation of many projects would be simply impossible,” Russian Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing, and Utilities Nikita Stasishin.

Planned development of the economy and investment in infrastructure

“It’s extremely important for us to have long-term plans to identify the growth points where we should proactively start developing infrastructure. It’s extremely important here to strategically make a business plan in the right way because infrastructure facilities are expensive and take a long time to build,” RusHydro Member of the Management Board and First Deputy General Director Sergey Kirov.

“We are implementing a programme to build electric charging facilities. The plan is to build electric charging stations from Moscow to Vladivostok in the next three years, so that a charging station is at least 150 km away and an electric car can freely travel from Moscow to the Far East,” RusHydro Member of the Management Board and First Deputy General Director Sergey Kirov.

For more, see the Roscongress Foundation’s Information and Analytical System roscongress.org

A National Business Plan for the Far East

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