Pavel Martynov. Exclusively to VK
On May 19th – the day of the pioneer organization in the Soviet Union – Nalchik will open the forum “Caucasus-Breakthrough.” This time initiators of the youth forum will try to drift away from the ideological aspect, which has recently dominated in such events. The forum, which will be held under management of the plenipotentiary envoy of President in the North Caucasus Federal District, Alexander Khloponin, will be a preliminary round of the all-Caucasian education forum Mashuk-2012. The main topic is tourism.
The problem is really acute for the North Caucasus. According to the head of the development project department of the Ministry of Economy of Russia, Andrei Sokolov, the investment package of the NCFD has 10 projects for 80 billion rubles in various spheres from oil chemistry to tourism. At the moment, the concept of Kavminvody development is creating, which will be a locomotive of growth not only of the Stavropol Territory, but also the North Caucasus and the whole south of Russia. The Ministry of Economy is sure that development of the investment process in the North Caucasus is prevented by several factors, but the main reason is a negative image of the region. Moscow hopes that a positive image of Russia, including the NCFD, will be formed by the World Student Games in Kazan, World Athletics Championships in Moscow, Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, World Hockey Championship in 2016, and the World Football Cup in 2018. However, at the moment Russian takes the 59th place in the world in the sphere of realization of tourist potential.
The federal authorities think that the NCFD’s zest is mountain climate tourism. Mountain skiing capacities are forming the legal base for attraction of investors and partners to the North Caucasus. Moscow has developed mechanisms of the state support of the project, made amendments to the federal law on special economic areas, and developed tax and customs benefits for residents of the resort economic areas in the NCFD.
Now the task is providing resorts with modern infrastructure. Construction of highways and railways, and airports is considered by the authorities the main conditions for attraction of tourists to the North Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.
As for attraction of investments, there are agreements signed with investors from France, Korea, and Singapore for more than $3 billion. Resorts of the North Caucasus signed a cooperation agreement on establishment of the Caspian cluster with the company Nafta Moskva, which plans to invest more than 43 billion rubles.
According to the plenipotentiary envoy of President in the NCFD, Alexander Khloponin, the general cost of the mountain-skiing part of the tourist cluster is estimated up to 451 billion rubles, 60 billion will be provided by the federal budget. Construction of the mountain skiing resort Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia is considered as a pilot project. The construction is provided by Group Sinara which has invested more than a billion rubles into the project.
However, one of the main problems of the sphere is lack of professional human resources for the tourist cluster. Resorts of the North Caucasus plan to train professionals in various constituents of the region.
