OREANDA-NEWS. September 10, 2012. On the eve of opening of the Business Summit Meeting of the APEC Forum in Vladivostok, the CCI of Russia President Sergey Katyrin took part in the conference titled “Invest in Russia” that took place in the form of a panel discussion.

The conference discussed issues of investments attraction to Russia, and in particular to the Far East: problems, prospects, possibilities, tendencies. Sergey Katyrin presented operation of the CCI system on the establishment in Russia of a climate favorable for attracting investments.

Russia is of great interest to investors as a country possessing huge opportunities. According to the UNCTAD rating the RF occupies the fifth place in the list of countries that are most favorable for direct foreign investments in 2009-2011. However, in this time period they amounted only to USD 48 bln. The reason is that we occupy only the 120-th place in the World Bank rating of the environment for doing business. We need to improve, perfect the Russian entrepreneurial environment, to rise from the 120-st to the 20-th place. This task set forth by the President of Russia is being solved today.

Eastern territories of Russia are in the range of interest of many business representatives of the Asian and Pacific region. For the CCI of Russia, implementation of the investment potential of eastern territories and assistance in attraction of investments in the national economy is one of the high priority areas of activities.

Sergey Katyrin dwelled upon key areas of the CCI of Russia activities in this field. Development of the regulations for investment projects promotion to potential investors is needed. Territorial chambers, representative offices of the CCI of Russia abroad, bilateral business councils, foreign partner organizations, Center for International Trade, and the largest exhibition operator of Russia – “Expocentre” actively participate in this work.

By efforts of the CCI of Russia, a system of high quality compilation of information about investment projects, its promotion to potential investors, and investments support in the regions has been developed and is being improved. This system was called investor-conductive infrastructure. For certain projects the negotiation process has reached the stage of implementation and generation of a pool of investors – “accredited partners”, with which cooperation of the CCI of Russia is being built in a more fruitful way. Some of them have a direct relationship to the Asian-Pacific region (Asian-Pacific Bank, Eurasian Development Bank).

We are talking not only about a search for an investor for the developed project, but about the search of partners and regions at the investor’s request. CCI of Russia cooperates with chambers of commerce and industry, and other partner organizations in the area of engagement of APEC foreign companies projects on establishment of innovation centers, special economic zones, techno-parks in the hi-tech area. Enterprises of the APR countries operating in the information-communication branch, in the area of bio technologies and agricultural industrial complex have pretty good chances to become residents of the innovation infrastructure established in Russia.

In the course of discussions, Sergey Katyrin made an accent on the fact that today it is not needed to divide investments into foreign and home. Investors shall have equal opportunities.

Of great importance is an active presentation, promotion of the investment potential of the regions. Many Russian, and moreover foreign investors do not know what field of operation, what prospects a district, or a krai or a republic of Russia may provide to them. For already several years the CCI of Russia has been successfully arranging for presentations of the investment potential of Russian territories. There is a long line of those who are willing to present their investment capabilities. Sergey Katyrin stressed that regions must more aggressively look for investments both inside the country and abroad, like Krasnodar Krai that is doing it quite successfully.

There is a problem of the capital outflow in Russia as well, said the CCI of Russia Head. However, we need to approach issues of the money inflow and outflow on a case-by-case basis. We still have to overcome business uncertainty about the future, the fear that rules of game in Russia may be changed suddenly and dramatically, which contributes to the capital outflow. But at the same time a great deal of Russian capitals is taken from the country in order to acquire state-of-the-art high-tech production facilities, the prices for which noticeably went down in the West in the crisis period. This is in line with normal entrepreneur logics, this cannot be called a “typical escape” of money. At the same time we need to think seriously about whether we should be so happy about arrival of capitals that were taken from the country to offshore companies and that returned under the guise of foreign investments.

When characterizing the entrepreneurial, investment climate in the country, Sergey Katyrin noted that there are serious problems, and asked foreign investors to pay their attention to the dynamics of processes taking place in this area in Russia. Over the last several years the state established a number of modern development institutions – Agency of Strategic Initiatives, Russian Agency on Insurance of Export Credits and Investments, the main areas of activities of which is support of home export and investments by way of insurance of financial and political risks, etc. This is a distinct and clear signal from the state to the business. 23 roadmaps for main areas of entrepreneurship were made and are being implemented. Their objective is to create maximally favorable conditions for the business operation. Russian entrepreneurship is not apart from business. It cooperates with the state in the aforesaid areas, and this gives grounds to say that the situation is changing for the better although maybe not so quickly as we want. Positive trends are noticeable, so we need to evaluate the “investment situation” in Russia from this standpoint.

An official opening in Vladivostok of the Business Summit Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum as part of the Russia’s presidency at APEC in 2012 will take place on September 7. A delegation from the CCI of Russia takes part in it.