Izvestia: "Boris Titov presents a cluster for the elderly to Putin"
Delovaya Rossiya head proposes 28 economic zones.
Vladimir Putin met with Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) NGO head Boris Titov on September 19. Titov presented Putin with a proposal for 28 clusters saying it would create a million high-technology jobs. Titov did not ask for direct budget funding, he only asked for tax concessions and state guarantees.
"The projects do not need state financial backing or any cash," Titov told Izvestia. "It is necessary to create an attractive investment climate. The state should provide guarantees – both financial and legal guarantees."
Vladimir Putin filed his proposals with the Ministry of Economic Development, Titov said. The ministry will decide whether his proposals are worth backing. Of 200 proposals from Russian businessmen, Delovaya Rossiya picked 28, and from those, the ministry will choose 15 of the best proposals for state support.
Many clusters emulate the special economic zones formed back in the Soviet Union. For example, Titov proposes a textile cluster in the Ivanov Region. One of the projects is a gerontology cluster in the North Caucasus. The project's planners hope to attract to this centre older people from Russia and foreign countries. A gerontology cluster, in this case, would include geriatric-friendly homes and a medical centre.
One proposal would make Kostroma the Russian jewelry capital (this is the title of one of the projects). Those behind the idea want to create a jewelry exchange and a trade and exhibition centre in Kostroma. Titov also asked for support for a wine producing province in the North Caucasus to promote Russian wines.
"I see you have social projects: a network of residence and healthcare centres for the older generation and private kindergartens. In fact, we have discussed a series of projects of this kind in the government and within the context of the Russian Popular Front," Vladimir Putin said.
However, Boris Titov believes that the state is ineffective in managing these projects and that business should develop the prospective zones.
"Government projects are badly organised and nobody controls them properly. They are only ever declared but nothing is implemented," Titov told Izvestia. "Our ministries are incapable of doing this. Total state support is fading away throughout the country."
This was literally what he told Putin, Titov said. He proposes to attract a management company, including a foreign company, to administer each cluster. The task to coordinate and control their general work and to report to the government, should be conferred on either the recently created Agency for Strategic Initiatives or a public organisation that would make an agreement with the Government. Naturally, Titov wants Delovaya Rossiya to become the contractor.
Meanwhile, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and Delovaya Rossiya have been getting familiar with each other. Artyom Avetisyan, director of the New Business sector at the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, said he reviewed all 28 projects and that the agency even agreed to a further partnership.
"This is the structure we plan to use to cooperate. Delovaya Rossiya has many businesspeople including those from non-raw material sectors with whom we intend to work and whose projects we will promote," Avetisyan told Izvestia.
However, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives was primarily interested in working with businesses within these clusters rather than the clusters as a whole, the agency's representative said.
Anastasia Novikova
