Russia tries to attract massive investments through foreign investors and this determines the authorities to revise the legislation in force and to launch new projects for which international companies can submit their offers.
This year Russia announced its intention regarding the attraction of investors in order to carry out the projects, establishing a value limit of the latter. The Ministry of Transport announced that it wanted to attract massive investments in transports which would generate economic growth and sustainable development. In case the Russian economy faces a budget limitation determined by the global financial crisis “no alternative financial resources and new legal mechanisms to solve the problem on accelerated development of transport infrastructure is not possible. At the same time, we believe it is possible, although not the best situation on world financial markets, to attract to each of the sectors of transport until 2020 RUB 200-300 Billion (EUR 5-6 Billion) private investment”, declared Maxim Sokolov, Russia’s Minister of Transport. By the policies to be applied, Russia wants to ensure a fair development for an integrated transport infrastructure for the purpose of improving the mobility and among the most important priorities is the execution of an integrated transport system at the level of the environmental safety and standards by implementing investment projects.
Likewise, at the level of authorities, systematic works are carried out for the legislation harmonization. Therefore, the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared that Russia intended to simplify procedures regarding the state control for foreign investors which get involved in strategic assets. “We are going to consider new amendments. They concern foreign investment and will help exclude a secondary inspection of foreign investments by the government commission – of decisions on preliminary approval of deals, if an applicant has already fulfilled his obligations”, mentioned Medvedev. If a deal requires no preliminary approval or has nothing to do with strategic assets, it could be directly approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
“The amendments are seeking to enhance the formation of a good investment climate and efforts to attract foreign investment will be continued”, he also stated.
Recently, Moscow authorities announced that they plan to announce the tender for the modernisation of the underground by attempting to attract foreign investors for the development of the project.
But the legislation must be revised since a major obstacle for the use of foreign equipment in the underground network is the regime of secrecy but the local authorities are ready to make concessions, said Tatiana Malashenkova, deputy head of the Moscow Transport and Road Infrastructure Department. “The participation of foreign contractors in underground development will require a qualitative change in the approach to design and approval. Under the existing norms, the metropolitan is both a means of transport and a civil defence facility and therefore, a considerable part of the design documentation is classified. The involvement of foreign contractual organizations will require a radical review of the normative base”, mentioned Malashenkova.
Share on:
