OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2012. The President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustan Minnikhanov and the Head of FAS Igor Artemyev opened the Training-and-Research centre of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

The President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustan Minnikhanov, made the following main points:

“I am very pleased to greet participants of the “Competition Day in Russia” in the hospitable land of Tatarstan.

It is comforting that the event is attended by representatives of Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova, Mongolia, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, the Ukraine, the United States, Finland, and France.

It is a big honour for us to host such a large-scale international event.

Now the problem of competition protection, creating favourable conditions for its development and combating adverse monopolistic impact is important more than even.

1. Joining the WTO, opens new cooperation opportunities for Russia.

Today Tatarstan works with over 110 countries in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

In 2011, the foreign trade turnover of our Republic reached around 25.8 billion dollars, growing by 37%. In particular, export was 22.5 billion dollars, and import – 3.3 billion dollars.

I am convinced that joining the WTO will allow us to better use our competitive advantages on the external and domestic markets.

2. According to “Forbes”, Tatarstan is the leader in the rating of the best regions for doing business in 2011. Ernst&Young also recognized it (2011).

In 2011, the gross regional product of the Republic was 1 trillion 250 billion Rubles, and by 2016 it must reach 2 trillion Rubles.

The amount of investments in the fixed capital in 2011 was 365 billion Rubles. Our goal is to raise this level to 40% of the gross regional product by 2016 (today it is around 31%).

Along with the growing economic indicators, a positive trend is observed for social indicators: life expectancy is increased to 72 years; the natural increase of the population in eight months of 2012 was 5,554 people.

3. Our Republic is one of the leading industrial and innovation centres of Russia.

Tatarstan concentrates its academic research and foreign investments on such strategic areas as petrochemical facilities, machine-building, IT-developments, agro-industry, medicine, nano- and biotechnologies, production of new materials, developing small and medium business.

Today 1,255 companies with foreign capital are registered in the Republic, including “Daimler”, “Ford-Sollers”, “Cummins”, “Case New Holland” and “Schneider Electric”. Certainly, arrival of such large global leaders by itself attracts new foreign companies to Tatarstan.

One of such “gravitation zones” is “Alabyga” special economic area, which produces over 70% of all goods generated in special economic areas in Russia. Currently 31 resident companies are registered in “Alabyga”, with the amount of announced investments nearly US\\$ 3 billion.

Nowadays a new town – Innopolis – is being built near Kazan, to where we will invite the leading IT-companies not only from Russia by from all over the world. We plan that 60,000 IT specialists will live and work in this town. It will be a unique creative environment.

4. A special role in the economy of Tatarstan is devoted to small and medium business – it constitutes nearly a quarter of our economy. More than 330,000 residents of the Republic work in SME.

Our goal is that by 2016 SME reach 34%. For this purpose the Republic has formed a well-developed infrastructure: we have a network of techno-polices, techno-parks, and business-incubators, a federal university of the international level, two national universities as well as investment and venture funds.

To support small business in the rural areas we will put in place the largest agro-park in Russia, which will directly connect producers and consumers and ensure affordable prices for quality agricultural products.

5. Kazan is rightly called the third capital of Russia. Here the East and the West, the Muslim and the Christian civilizations twin.

115 different nationalities live in Tatarstan in peace and harmony. In the Republic there are 1438 religious organizations, making Tatarstan one of the leaders in Russia in this aspect.

We are restoring our Russian Orthodox and Muslim sacred places: Sviyazhsk town-island and a medieval town of Bulgar.

6. Kazan is also called the sport capital of Russia.

In less than a year Kazan will host the 27th Summer World Student Games. 13,000 sportsmen and around 100,000 tourists and sport fans from 170 countries will be coming to our capital.

In 2015, Kazan will host the Water Sport World Championship, and in 2018 – the World Cup tournaments.

Preparation to these and other events requires considerable capital investments and robust development of infrastructure. At the same time, it opens broad opportunities for international cooperation and investments.

7. For the region to be competitive and maintain the leading position in Russia, the antimonopoly bodies must take a clear and strict standpoint.

It is essential to fully eliminate the practice of granting unlawful preferences to certain organizations by the ordering parties, or, vice versa, creating artificial barriers.

Unfortunately, such incidents happen. In the first six months of 2012 the Tatarstan Office of FAS Russia made 219 decisions exposing unlawful actions by the authorities that restricted competition.

To achieve the target goals, liability of officials for such violations of the antimonopoly law must be tightened.

Dear Forum participants!

In conclusion I would like to express confidence that our visit to Kazan will help further strengthen cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies across the globe.

I wish everyone productive work and a pleasant stay in the capital of our Republic!”