Russia’s deputy prime minister and presidential envoy in the Far Eastern federal district said he doesn’t rule out an economic slowdown in the region in the next couple of years but after that the region will resume economic growth.
“I have no doubts that the Far East will demonstrate positive development trends. Our key task now is to prevent a drop throughout the current year,” Yury Trutnev said in an interview with the NTV television channel, Tass reported.
“Territories of accelerated development are only beginning to work, investment projects are just at an initial stage to pay off later. But we are not affected by the general slowdown. The worst thing that might happen is a certain slowdown in growth rates in the next couple of years.”
He stressed that the region is demonstrating positive economic trends.
At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in late December 2015, Trutnev said that industrial growth in the Far East in January-October 2015 was 3%, with investments up by 5% and tax revenues up by 31%.
As of now, the Russian government has approved ten territories of accelerated development in the Far East: three in the Primorsky Territory, two in the Amur region, two in the Khabarovsk Territory, one in Kamchatka, one in Chukotka and one in Yakutia.
According to the Minister for Development of Far East Alexander Galushka, as many as 105 applications from residents to a sum of 312 billion rubles ($4 billion) of investments have been received as of February 11. Thus, it is planned to commission 13 plants in Yakutia’s Kangalassy industrial park alone by 2018.
