OREANDA-NEWS. March 12, 2010. Head of Karelia Sergey Katanandov has made a working trip to Kostomuksha. The key event of the visit was signing of a quadrilateral agreement between the Government of the republic, Karelsky Okatysh ore-dressing and processing enterprise, Severstal-Resource corporation which includes the ore-dressing and processing enterprise, and local self-government of Kostomuksha urban district.

According to this document of ore-dressing and processing enterprise assumes an obligation to transfer additional taxes to the budget, to preserve workplaces, to pay wages duly, continue implementation of social programs and provide continuous delivery of heat and hot water to Kostomuksha city dwellers. In turn, the Government of Karelia undertakes to assign additional funds from the budget of the republic for development of Kostomuksha and render the ore-dressing and processing enterprise and the town various kinds of the state support, including tax privileges and budgetary credit reimbursement privileges.

Head of Karelia Sergey Katanandov, Director General of Severstal-Resource Joint-Stock Company Alexander Grubman, Director General of Karelsky Okatysh Open Society Maxim Vorobiev and Head of Kostomuksha urban district Vyacheslav Shapoval have subscribed their names to the agreement.

The Agreement for 2010 has become the fifth. For the first time such document was signed in 2005, and while the agreement was valid the town of miners was assigned more than 230 million roubles extra from the budget of Karelia. In addition, this money was spent to build a new swimming pool and aquapark in Kostomuksha and to solve tasks of the town infrastructure. Within the scope of the new agreement the funds are expected to be spent on, first of all, formation of sites for housing construction and building a modern biathlon track capable of hosting competitions of the world class.

Head of Karelia has noted, that signing of the agreement testifies that Kostomuksha ore-dressing and processing enterprise has successfully coped with consequences of crisis. According to Maxim Vorobiev, next year the enterprise intends to follow the strategy of efficiency and growth, that is to increase the output, to increase contribution to the budget and to double expenses of the occupational safety, energy-saving, introduction of new technologies. Besides, the Director General has promised that salaries of employees of the enterprise this year will grow.

Alexander Grubman has noted, that cooperation between Severstal-Resource and the Government of Karelia may serve as a model of effective partnership of the state and business. As Alexander Grubman has emphasized, thanks to this cooperation the enterprise has managed to survive and keep the personnel during the crisis period. At that, Alexander Grubman has pointed out great personal contribution of the Head of Karelia to success of teamwork on performance of agreements.

After the ceremony of signing of the agreement attended by many employees of the ore-dressing and processing enterprise, Head of Karelia has answered questions of workers and rewarded the best employees of the enterprise on behalf of the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Russia.

Another example of successful partnership between the authorities and manufacturers became the agreement between the Government of Karelia and AEK, Ltd. This Kostomuksha enterprise producing electic supplies for VOLVO ans SCANIA is the employer for more than 800 workers, mostly women. When the crisis began, proceeds of the enterprise have grown 80% less, however, by joint effort of the authorities and the management the situation was stabilized. The enterprise has switched to full time working day, it pays taxes and salaries in due time (even for the three-day working week it made 16 thousand roubles on the average). It was possible to avoid employment layoffs, on the contrary, now the factory offers new vacancies. 19 people have already been employed, 50 more will be employed in the next 2 months.

"I want to thank you for the the wisdom you have shown and for your effective work, – Head of Karelia has addressed to representatives of AEK during his visit to the factory. – I am glad, that we have managed to not simply preserve the enterprise, but to keep its efficient. We are close, and the agreement is valid. Now we are facing the task of further production development."

Sergey Katanandov has also visited the Swedwood Karelia sawmill. There the point of issue was a project of construction of a new furniture factory to employ 420 workers. Prospective volume of investments makes € 48 million. Because of the crisis the project was frozen, and now the enterprise tries to give it the priority status in the field of development of forests of Russia that would allow to count on the federal assistance. Head of Karelia has called proprietors for more efficient actions and promised them support of the Government of the republic.

Within the scope of the working visit Sergey Katanandov has held a meeting in the administration of Kostomuksha. Despite of all difficulties which the crisis has caused last year, with the help of the republic the town has managed to implement several important projects. Thus, in Kostomuksha there has been built a new swimming pool and a mini-aquapark, a new crushed-stone unit was put into operation at the enterprise, two new transformer substations have been built in the neighbourhood, that means additional power capacities for development of existing and new productions, a trout farm has opened, etc. Besides, local self-government has carried our reasonable optimization of the budgetary sphere, and it has allowed to achieve 16% growth of salaries of public-sector employees, that is more than on the average in Karelia.

In conclusion of his trip Sergey Katanandov has been to the concert devoted to the 8th of March, and has congratulated all the women of Kostomuksha and Karelia on the coming holiday.

Summing up the trip, Head of Karelia has noted: "This year we helped the ore-dressing and processing enterprise, and now it works steadily, other enterprises of Kostomuksha are also coming out of the recession. It allows to count that we will manage to fulfill many plans on development of the town and the republic."

On the trip the Head of Karelia was accompanied by the deputy of the State Duma Valentina Pivnenko, Chief Federal Inspector in the Republic of Karelia Alexander Hynninen, heads of ministries and departments of Karelia.