By Vestnik Kavkaza
Many leading Russian economic experts are now focused on the new constituent of the federation – Crimea. Resources and a labor force are being sent there. Experts fear that development of the North Caucasus economy will pale into insignificance in the situation, and the NCFD shouldn’t wait for additional economic privileges.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Gutenyov, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Industry, the first vice-president of the Union of Engineering Workers of Russia, told Vestnik Kavkaza that efforts aimed at stabilization of economy of the NCFD constituents had brought results. “We see a turn from quantity to quality. An inflow of tourists is growing. We can see that money is invested not only in infrastructure, but also in construction of new industrial facilities. We don’t give a fish, but give a fishing rod, and the regions have to learn how to fish. Creating new jobs, establishing powerful infrastructural projects and technological clusters are the reality of our days,” Gutenyov thinks.
However, according to him, there is “a difficult and uneasy problem of effective use of budget resources. Can the authorities solve the problem without the intensive involvement of society? The answer is probably “no.” Will civil society be involved in the processes? Of course, considering the specificity and mentality it will be difficult to do. However, the current ratings show that the unemployment rate is falling, living standards are being improved. In the context of instability outside our country, this is very important. So attention is focused on regions where rapid development is needed – the Far East and the North Caucasus, where the density of population is high, expectations are great, and readiness to work hard is big.”
Gutenyov hopes that “the Ministry for Regional Development will put emphasis on certain Russian regions, which will be attentively monitored and a deeper analysis of them will be carried out. The high-class basis of industrial developed regions – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Samara – forms unequal initial opportunities for evaluation of efficiency of regional leaders. Professionals have to be attracted. We have such professionals among experts of the agency for strategic initiatives and of our leading universities, including the Higher School of Economics. Cooperation could bring the necessary synergy for development of the right decisions on the development of territories.”
“I’m impressed with the growth of the Chechen Republic,” Gutenyov says. “We can see here that efficiency is much higher than in the neighboring regions. Of course, other republics should catch up the leader. We should do a lot in Dagestan and Ingushetia. Karachay-Cherkessia has big potential for development of the recreation cluster. However, the Ministry for Regional Development is more responsible for this matter than heads of the regions. It is important to fulfil the potential.”
According to Gutenyov, there are various potentials in the region, including industrial and intellectual ones. “I would like our state to turn into the scale of the Moscow Principality. Our motherland is strong due to its regions, and the regional aspect should be developed. We should speak about fulfillment of scheduled tasks. We have reconsidered scheduled tasks very often. There are tasks, we declare in 2008 that by 2012 we should reach something, but in 2010 we develop new tasks, and there is no analysis of whether the previous tasks have been fulfilled and what should be corrected. I think criteria of fulfillment of planned indices are very important in any rating. There are planned indices and we monitor how the head of a region deals with reaching the indices. The ratings could be a serious reason for making decisions about management and staff.”
