Tag Archives: regions

Cisco buys in to Skolkovo

“Cisco buys in to Skolkovo” (“Cisco vlozhitsya v Skolkovo”), Ekspert Online, 24 June 2010. 24 June 2010 http://www.expert.ru/news/2010/06/24/cisco/.

Announcement of Cisco’s plans to invest 1 mil. dollars in Russian technological development.  Cisco will furnish its own material and intellectual capital.  No mention was made regarding land capital.

President names a head of Skolkovo

Meshcherskaya, Elizabeta. “President names a head of Skolkovo” (“Prezident vozglavil Skolkovo”), Chastnii Korrespondent, 19 June 2010. 15 July 2010 http://www.chaskor.ru/article/prezident_vozglavil_skolkovo_18037.

Report on Medvedev’s formation of the management company of Skolkovo.  It was also mentioned that in addition the preparatory legislation for Skolkovo’s creation, now going through the federal Duma, that plans have been made to formulate the participating investing companies’ rights to land nearer to September.

Industrial parks

Koshcheyev, Sergey. “Ravil Muratov: Why dirty Moscow? Why don’t you build here?” (“Ravil Muratov: Zachem zagryaznyat’ Moskvu, luchshe davayte stroit’ u nas”), BiznesOnline, 3 June 2010. 22 July 2010 http://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/25010/16/.

Article discusses different regions’ systems of industrial parks: Moscow Oblast doesn’t invest a kopek in them, but leaves their construction up to investors; Leningradskaya and Kaluzhskaya Oblasts rent land with infrastructures; and Tatarstan offers ready-to-operate facilities.  This can serve to lessen concerns of entrepreneurs that new niches in markets will disappear before necessary capital is gathered to begin production: this way, the government takes on the obstacles of land registration and re-zoning, often a two-year process.  In Moscow, however, the returns on industrial parks in 2009 reached 5 trillion rubles.  Both the Republic of Tatarstan and Moscow Oblasts have programs for bargain mortgages on residential spaces in these parks.

GUZR calls for restructuring of permanent use

Panteleev, Aleksey.  “GUZR [Head administration of land resources] calls for restructuring of permanent use” (“GUZR prizyvaet pereoformit’ ‘bessrochku’”), Kommercheskie Vesti, 2 June 2010. 15 July 2010 http://kvnews.ru/archive/2010/jur21(947)/farm/14198/.

Update on restructuring of permanent (perpetual) use lands: 30% of Omsk enterprises [mostly small industrial enterprises] hold lands under permanent use.  Adds that in Omskaya Oblast until January 1, 2012, enterprises using land on which they own facilities, equipment, etc. can buy-out the land at a rate of 2.5% of its Cadastral value.  After that date, fines of 20 to 100 thousands rubles can be imposed, though at the federal level, considerations are being made to tighten these measures.

Also: “Perpetual use coming to an end.” Russian Real Estate, 9 August 2010. 16 July 2010 http://www.1rre.ru/news/doc/35747/.  On publication date, 80% of Omsk Oblast’s permanent (perpetual) users had been either been restructured as proprietors or renters, according to the GUZR of Omsk.

Field of dreams in a country of innovators

Ozerova, Marina. “Field of dreams in a country of innovators” (“Pole chudes v strane innovatorov”), Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 25366, 2 June 2010. 15 July 2010 http://www.mk.ru/economics/article/2010/06/01/502106-pole-chudes-v-strane-innovatorov.html

Summary of legislation introduced to Duma by Medvedev regarding the management organization of Skolkovo.  The now state-owned lands of the new “technopolis” will be handed over into the ownership of a president-appointed “management company;” however, the company will not be allowed to sell the land, only rent it to participating investors.  These investors (tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Siemens, etc.) are expected to receive huge tax breaks and which will not be expected to pay any taxes for their first ten years of operations if certain profit levels are not met.  These exemptions will also include exemptions from property and land taxes.

Diesel – with a plan

Binkov, Andrey and Vera Krasnova. “Dizel krupnym planom,” Ekspert 21 (706), 30 May 2010, 52-61. 24 June 2010 http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/browse/doc/21956586.

Highlights of the success of overhauls that OAO Avtodizel’ has made to its production and infrastructure during the economic crisis. The changes have not affected the company’s maximum production capabilities, according to Viktor Kadylkin, general director.  Apart from deep cuts to salaries and manpower, the factory has also moved a portion of its manufacturing plants to a freed-up location in Yaroslavl.  When added to the firm’s outsourcing of its transport services, decreased transport expenditures due to these changes have added 2 million rubles a month to the company’s live funds.  Further, a significant decrease of the land area occupied by production facilities was made possible through efficacious changes and modifications made to the factory’s internal organization: new conveyor systems requiring less space, along with more compact assembly-line technologies demanding less manpower, all based on the Toyota model, have been installed.  Kadylkin says these changes would only have been considered in a time of economic crisis. Decreased transportation losses enabled Avtodizel’ to lower the number of works in progress by 60% in 2009.

Helping developers

“Helping developers” (“Zastroyshchiku pomogli”), Ekspert Ural 6 (408), 15 February 2010. 1 July 2010 http://www.expert.ru/printissues/ural/2010/06/news_zasrtoischiku_pomogli/.

Report on the Ekaterinburg city Duma’s decreasing the rates on yearly taxes paid by developers owning land plots occupied by multi-story buildings, from 0.1% to 0.06% of the land’s Cadastral value. This will affect 108 privately-owned land plots in the city (the largest portion of which are held by development firm “Renova-Stroygrupp”), including many in the sizable Akademicheskii region (9,000 m2) under development now. This will free up vast amounts of money for many firms: taxes incurred by Akademicheskii developers will drop from 52 to 31 million rubles, for instance; small firms will benefit, too. Some are raising their voices against the “privileges” (e.g. special buy-out prices) being afforded to large developers, mistrusting Duma deputies’ claims that the Akademicheskii region is primarily being built for accessible, low-cost housing, or alternately, that it will catalyst greater economic growth in the region.

Note: Other various articles (since February) have reported the general success of the first Akademicheskii regions to open.

Braverman’s Land Patrol

Stupin, Ilya. “Braverman’s Land Patrol” (“Zemel’nii patrul’ Bravermana”), Ekspert 41, 26 October 2009, 28-34. 28 June 2010 http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/browse/doc/20828585.

An examination of the federal government’s practice of distributing seized land in auctions to developers via the Residential Construction Development assistance fund (RZhS Fund).  The new government organization, an initiative of Medvedev’s aimed at creating a renewed market for construction, has begun seizing land from agricultural institutes on grounds of underuse.  Developers in Tyumen’, Kirov, Cheboksarakh, and Kursk have already begun leasing these lands, promised the opportunity to privatize the land after 9-11 years of use.  The article criticizes the RZhS Fund institution as short-sighted, as it is so far unclear as to who will consist the buyers and renters in this new, real-estate-flooded residential building market.  Although, both RZhS Fund head Aleksandr Braverman and construction business heads credit the Fund’s creation with the streamlining of bureaucratic processes and incentivizing of developers’ building-up and eventually privatizing the plots.  Controls on where developers can set rent rates, as well as insufficient budgetary funds allocated for the RZhS count among the Fund’s problems.

Quoting from an interview with Kirov Oblast governor, Nikita Belikh, the second half of the article examines what may be the RZhS’s greatest weakness: a lack of a central region development plan and poor cooperation with the regions in which these infrastructure-less lands are being auctioned.

News of the Week

“News of the Week,” Ekspert Volga 38 (153), 5 October 2009.  30 June 2010 http://www.expert.ru/printissues/volga/2009/38/news_week/.

The Republic of Tatarstan’s Gossovet deputies proposed an amendment to the RF Land Code that would allow seizures of land, the owners of which have not paid their land taxes or put the land to use in the last three years. The proceeds from these lands’ auctions (minus transaction costs) would be used as compensation for the previous proprietors, from whom the land was seized. “The measures put forth by the deputies, indubitably, could enliven the land market and shrink the number of ineffectively used lands.”

In Volgograd, municipality will cooperate with industrial enterprises in buying out land plots

“In Volgograd, municipality will cooperate with industrial enterprises in buying out land plots” (“V Volgograde munitsipalitet okazhet sodeystvie promyshlennym predpriyatiyam v vykupe zemel’nykh uchastkov”), Zem.ru, 28 September 2009.  26 July 2010 http://www.zem.ru/all/825/.

The state of land reform in Volgograd.  The Volgograd municipality is offering a discount price on land buy-outs, if purchased by enterprises before the end of 2009; the relative stability of land tax rates, as opposed to more in-flux lease payments, is another incentive to buy out, the article adds.  The city administration is encouraging full privatization of land since land taxes on private land help fill the city budget.  The 400 hectares of federal land, on which 15 large industrial enterprises are currently situated, currently add some 123 million rubles to the city coffers annually; if reformulated as rents from the federal government, the city will lose these monies.  Committee on land resources chairperson Irina Anisimova is pleased that 80 new enterprise land privatizations in 2008 were added to the total 290 privatized industrial land plots, though she realizes this momentum must be sustained.  Although city administration affirms its readiness to cooperate with enterprises in quickly formulating buy-out documents, disparities between Cadastral appraisal prices and market prices are sure to fuel disagreements over buy-out prices.