As before, the social and economic prospects of the North Caucasus in 2016 are related to Russia's prospects as a whole. It is important that the development priorities of the region have already been identified at the federal level, the chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Public Movement 'Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus', a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Aslambek Paskachev, said in an interview with a VK correspondent at the Gaidar Forum-2016 'Russia and the World: A look into future'.
Paskachev pointed out tourism as the first priority among others. "I mean the development of various health resorts and spas, which are becoming more attractive. We see a large number of tourists travelling to Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, starting from the mountain lake of Kezenoyam up to the mountain peaks and cities of North Caucasus. Stavropol Territory has begun very dynamic development, especially in the field of balneology spa treatment,'' he said.
Another priority is training of local professionals. "When we want to build new, modern production facilities, not only in the North Caucasus Federal District, we are faced with a lack of personnel. I know examples when it was difficult to find drivers in Stavropol Territory for technical vehicles, combine harvesters and tractors, imported to our country. What do we need to do in this respect? First, we should rely on our universities in technical and organizational terms, recreate the training of secondary technical staff. It is also necessary to prepare supreme engineering staff, as we don't have enough experts to restore production," Paskachev said.
"At the same time, we have another problem: a lot of Russian people have left the North Caucasus, including specialists. All these challenges now need to be solved together, and they should be determined as priorities. Thus, the state national policy, established as part of the international relations strategy during the last fifty years, is being implemented successfully. At the same time, we feel a certain backlog of the public authorities in respect of a resolution of pressing problems: the problems are acute and urgent, so it is difficult to solve them, as well as encourage our officials to do this. But I think we will also overcome it," the member of the Public Chamber expressed hope.
"Despite the fact that this year won't be easier than the last one, we have more enthusiasm and positive expectations, because in recent years we have felt the respect of the world community for our state and for the ordinary citizens. I think together we will achieve significant and great success. Above all, we need to work with young people, educate them so that they will understand that they will be responsible for the greatest country in the world," Aslambek Paskachev concluded.
