North Caucasus to receive 300 billion rubles

The North Caucasus regions will be allocated more than 300 billion rubles until 2025, these funds will primarily be used to develop tourism and investment opportunities, the Minister for the North Caucasus, Lev Kuznetsov, said.

Earlier, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that  funding for the program for the development of the North Caucasus until 2020 will amount to 150 billion rubles.

Kuznetsov said that the program has been revised due to the fact that it is unclear what funding there will be after 2021. That is why the Cabinet decided to send another 164 billion rubles for the development of the region until 2025.

The minister noted that 45 billion rubles will be spent on the infrastructure of ski resorts in the region, especially in Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Chechnya.

Also, 58 billion rubles will be spent on additional capitalization of 'Corporation for the development of the North Caucasus'. The main part will be used to create a medical cluster in Stavropol Territory, RIA Novosti cited Kuznetsov as saying.

The head of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that agriculture, industry and, of course, tourism are priority sectors for the region, and the funds will be transferred on its development.

"First and foremost, we need to develop the agricultural complex and manufacturing in general. Of course, we need to work with the tourism industry to be able to return every coin back to the state after a while, in the long term," he said.

The deputy head of the Journalism Mastery Subdepartment of the MSLU, Alan Kasaev, said that some time ago, the Minister of the North Caucasus was acquainted with the priorities of the site and agreed to support them.

"Lev Kuznetsov recently visited North Ossetia and examined some industrial facilities. Then the agreement on the allocation of priority investments was reached," the analyst said. However, according to him, the number of prospective sites will grow. 

"The acting head of North Ossetia, Tamerlan Aguzarov, told the minister that now the country will intensify its project activities. This was expected, since all projects, which were actively promoted by former management, such as the tourism cluster 'Mamison' or the cascade of small hydroelectric power plants, have failed," the expert noted.

"Thus, there are not so many major projects in North Ossetia that are ready for investment in the next few months, but there is no doubt that the activities for the emergence of such projects will be significantly enhanced by the end of the year," Alan Kasaev summed up.