OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2010. A presentation of investment opportunities of the Stavropol region took place at the RF CCI Congress Center.

The delegation of the Stavropol region led by governor Valery Gaevsky included senator Elena Sagal, deputy chairman of the regional government Georgi Efremov and Minister of the Stavropol region’s economic development Yuri Yagudaev. Members of the delegation included top officials of other region’s ministries,  authorities and bodies of municipal power as well as representatives of a number of investment companies working on different projects in the Stavropol region.

The presentation was attended by RF CCI Senior vice president Boris Pastukhov, RF CCI vice president and managing director Ivan Gorelovsky, vice president Vladimir Strashko, president of the Republic of Ingushetiya Yunus-Bek Evkurov, representatives of federal legislative and executive authorities, managers of RF CCI department, domestic and foreign investors, as well officials of the chambers of commerce and industry of a number of countries. Attending the event were Austria’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation Clestille-Leffler Margot, Moldova’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation Andrei Negude, representatives of the diplomatic missions of Algiers, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Ukraine and Vietnam.

A display of the region’s investment projects was staged at the foyer of the Congress Center.

RF CCI Senior vice president Boris Pastukhov opened the presentation and made a welcoming speech, saying that the experience of holding the presentation at the RF CCI premises was proof that events like than provide a good opportunity for the regions to establish contacts with would-be Russian and foreign investors. The Stavropol region is a vast territory with well-developed agriculture and a population of hard-working people. Such an area stands a good chance of finding investors. The Stavropol region has a place of its own on the Russian map also because the RF government has adopted the Strategy of Socio-Economic development of the Northern Caucasian region up to 2020. This means that the significance of its successful development exceeds that of an individual member of the Federation. Boris Pastukhov believes that the Stavropol region can become a locomotive of this strategy. Its key element is drawing into the region domestic and foreign investments. The region has ample investment opportunities in the industrial, energy and agricultural areas, pharmaceuticals and tourism. The region has a good potential for innovative development, stressed Boris Pastukhov in conclusion.

Sergei Vereshchagin, deputy minister of regional development wished the participants of the forum success in their work and read out the welcoming address of Aleksandr Khloponin, deputy chairman of the Russian government, a plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president in the Northern Caucasian Federal district. ”The event you are attending is symbolic for both the Stavropol region and all the regions of the Northern Caucasus, because holding such presentations gives us a unique opportunity to demonstrate a region’s investment potential, giving a new impetus to the growth of private business,” the message said in particular.

Words of welcome were also said to the forum participants by State Duma of the RF Federal Assembly Mikhail Sutiaginsky and Elena Sagal, a member of the Federation Council of the RF Federal Assembly.

The governor of the Stavropol region Valery Gaevsky made a speech at the presentation. ”While the Stavropol region is making up plans of long-term development,” he said, “at present it orients itself towards solving common goals and tasks of the Northern Caucasian macro-region, towards the rapid development of its production sector, with creation of new jobs and raising the population’s living standards. The region’s industrial sector has about 400 major and medium-sized enterprises and is responsible for about one-fourth of the region’s gross product and 72% of exports from the region. It has well-developed chemical, petroleum extraction and glass-making industries as well as the machine-building industry. Its innovation component is also on the rise. An example of successful industrial enterprise, the governor said, was the group “Energomera” that manufactures 20% of the world’s production of artificial sapphires with the annual export amounting to USD 60 million. The amount of its turn out and sales of composite compounds is of about the same values. Both sapphires and compounds are used for the manufacture of, for example, energy-saving lighting equipment and a lot of other commodities, like incandescent lamps that are gradually removed by other bulbs. High-tech industries are also gaining greater importance. During the global crisis the Stavropol industries worked at a loss for just several months, and its annual indices were all above those planned.

It is unnecessary to look for special words to describe the Stavropol region’s agricultural sector. In the severe climate of this year, the region has harvested more than 7 million tonnes of grain, one-tenth of the entire Russia’s loaf. One in every three tonnes of the rape is grown in the region. The annual production of milk amounts to 630,000 tonnes, almost 300,000 tonnes of meat and 825 million eggs.

The Stavropol region outdoes the Czech Karlovy Vary in terms of the number and diversity of curative mineral water springs. 34 new spas and tourist facilities are under construction there at present. The spas in the town of Caucasian Mineral Waters admit about 1 million people coming there to take treatment and have a rest. But the potential is much higher, so our goal is to increase the number of visitors there to 5 to 10 million people, Valery Gaevsky emphasized.

The governor stressed that the region’s priorities include involvement in infrastructure projects based on the government and private business partnership. These include, for example, the construction of industrial parks in Nevinnomyssk, Budyonnovsk, Stavropol and other cities. A complex system of state support for investors has been worked out, including subsidizing credits, provision of state guarantees, tax preferences and mechanisms of the activities of the pledging fund. Small businesses are getting state guarantees much more often than before. The work is being done on the creation of the region’s venture fund that is to become an element of the regional innovation system, supporting R&D projects. It has been agreed in principle that ROSNANO, the VTB bank and other co-investors will participate in forming this fund whose aggregate assets will be worth more than 1.3 billion roubles.

The Stavropol region is open to investors, stressed Valery Gaevsky in conclusion.

After that the event was chaired by deputy chairman of the region’s government Georgi Efremov.

President of ARNEST Aleksei Sagal spoke about his company that manufactures a number of lines of commodities, including cosmetics. It refurbishes its production lines with, planning to turn out up to 240 million sprays for different applications in the coming several years.

Deputy general director and capital construction and investments director of ENEL OGK-5 Thomas Bull told the audience about the investments into the Stavropol region his company had made and its activities aimed at upgrading the Nevinnomyssk Regional Power Plant.

Mikhail Antonov, an official of LUKoil told the audience about the continuing construction of the 109 million roubles petrogas-chemical complex STAVROLEN to specialise in the production of commodities in the highest demand – ethylene, polythene, polypropylene, benzol and vinyl acetate.

Minister of economic development of the Stavropol region Yuri Yagudaev’s report was dedicated to the basic investment projects in the region. There is a project of creation of an industrial cluster near Nevinnomyssk, where a regional industrial park is being built with such preferences as a 20 years land and property tax holiday for investors who will have to pay much less for electricity, enjoying a preferential profit tax, a no-tender obtaining of land based just on demand within a matter of weeks). A regional industrial park is also under construction in Budyonnovsk, with an offer of diverse preferences for the investors into the raw materials processing of STAVROLEN’s production (ethylene, vinyl acetate, etc). Other strategic projects include the creation of a pharmaceuticals cluster in Stavropol, a special economic tourist and recreational zone of the Grand-Spa-Yutza in the Caucasian Mineral Waters region. The authorities of the Stavropol region want to create their own automobile cluster for the manufacture of small-tonnage trucks with 20.25 billion roubles to be earmarked for the project that will create 8,000 jobs. Nanotechnologies will also be developed in the region.

Andrei Murga, president of the Stavropol region’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry spoke about his chamber’s activities aimed at encouraging of entrepreneurship in the region, attraction of investments and the creation of the climate favourable for doing business in the region.

The costs of many investment projects were given in the course of the presentation. For example, the investment project “The New Solar Flow” “weighs” 5.2 billion roubles, the AGRICO project is worth 7.3 billion roubles, that of “2B Group” is 42.5 billion roubles and the project to be undertaken by “Group KHIMEX” is worth more than 10 billion roubles. These all are evidence of the region’s investment potential. The economy of the Stavropol region is vibrant, orienting itself at the innovative way of development. The region is one of Russia’s Top 20 territories of innovative development. In 2009, the region adopted its Strategy of Investment Attraction programme up to the year 2020.

The governor of the Stavropol region Valery Gaevsky closed the forum with his speech.

And in conclusion, a press-conference was held where the participants of the presentation answered many questions from journalists.