RBC Daily: "Investment Climate Assessment”
The Government has drafted new criteria for assessing the efficiency of regional governments.
It will now be easier to assess the investment climate in Russia's regions. The Government has expanded the number of criteria making it possible to assess regional business climates. From now on, regional governors will have to report on the volume of foreign investment, the foreign trade turnover and online auctions. These who initiated these innovations do not plan to stop here and are preparing separate investment climate assessment ratings.
It appears that drafting proposals to improve the regional investment climate has become a key element of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's instructions after the October 12 meeting of the United Russia party's General Council. The prime minister pushed changes to the system for assessing the efficiency of regional governments. Government resolution No. 1052 has become the first step in this direction.
The list of criteria for assessing the efficiency of a governors' work now includes such parameters as the volume of direct per-capita foreign investment, the foreign trade turnover and the price of state contracts concluded at online tenders. The business community views the latter as a positive sign. "State contracts are a major source of demand for business. Naturally, the terms for taking advantage of this demand are far from ideal," said Alexander Galushka, President of the national non-governmental organisation Delovaya Rossia (Business Russia). He said effective online tenders facilitated far greater transparency and accessibility.
He said these additions highlighted initial changes in the system for assessing the performance of governors, and that the fulfillment of Putin's instructions was not confined to such changes.
These latest assessment criteria should also include total investment volume. "Of course it's much harder to attract foreign investment, and it's good that higher objectives have been set. Distinguishing foreign investment as a separate segment of work is also correct. But it would also be good to augment the efficiency assessment system with the volume of direct investment, so that both things become inter-dependent," Galushka told the paper.
The business association also proposes introducing separate criterion, namely, "new top-quality, highly productive jobs" capable of generating cost-effective investment. "Plus, the system for assessing the efficiency of the regions contains several parameters. So, we find it important to formulate separate ratings to assess the investment climate. We are now drafting this rating system in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development," Galushka noted, without mentioning any specific deadlines.
Generally the business community reacted positively to these changes. "This includes basic quantitative criteria for assessing the efficiency of local government," said Yan Gritans, General Director of the auditing firm MEF-Audit. He thinks the resolution is an important step in improving regional investment. In his opinion, it would be helpful to "conduct a comprehensive survey of every region to single out each region's competitive advantages." This would make it possible to improve the regional administration process.
But this system of assessments may only remain on paper. "I'm afraid that there will be a lot of formalism here," said Valery Khomyakov, the general
director of the Agency of Applied and Regional Policy. "Attracting investment is a very difficult task. Much depends on the governors, some of whom are good at attracting investment, some of whom are not," Khomyakov noted.
Anastasia Litvinova
