North Caucasus receives 150 billion rubles

Funding for the program for the development of the North Caucasus until 2020 will amount to 150 billion rubles, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said today at a meeting of the Government Commission on the Socio-Economic Development of the North Caucasus Federal District.

It is expected that these funds will primarily be used to stimulate the real sector, as well as for the implementation of major interregional projects. In particular, for each of the seven districts of the region individual subprograms will be developed taking into account the industrial and agricultural specialization and labor market conditions. "Conditions for obtaining budget funding will be the same for all. We need an absolutely clear mechanism for the evaluation and selection of such projects. Then, firstly, we will be able to provide effective use and return of budget funds. And, secondly, private investors will invest more in such projects," the Russian Prime Minister summed up.

A senior researcher at the Center for Regional Studies and Urbanistics of the Institute of Applied Economic Research of RANHiGS, Constantine Kazenin, in a conversation with Vestnik Kavkaza stressed that the key objective in satisfying the needs of regions of the North Caucasus Federal District should be changing the institutional plan.

A member of the Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, journalist Maxim Shevchenko, noted that the most important thing in the federal plan to support the economy of the North Caucasus is who will control the spending of money. "Until now, budget revenues, with few exceptions, went to the North Caucasus nomenclatura and their close relatives. Let's see, will the federal center be able to protect these 150 billion rubles, not a very large amount of money, from unpunished plundering, which in front of the whole North Caucasus region was subjected to the majority of the money coming from the federal government in previous years?" he asked.