Ministry of regional development: “Bashkortostan is not found in the risk group”

The results of the social-economic monitoring among Russian regions, held by Russian Ministry of regional development in January 2009, prove that Republic of Bashkortostan is not found in the “risk group” and belongs to the regions, where situation with economics remains stable, “Russian Business Newspaper” reports.

According to the monitoring all Russian regions were divided into four groups: the regions with the worst situation, regions with unsatisfactory, with satisfactory and with stable positions. The crisis hardly hit 21 regions, including Chuvashia, Perm region, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara and Chelyabinsk regions.

Stable situation is observed in 26 regions, such as Republic of Bashkortostan, Krasnodar region, Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Leningrad, Moscow and Tyumen regions, having the composite index more than 0,5 points.

“The grouping of regions by the risk level is the evaluation of possible negative scenarios in economics, made on the basis of economic structures in the regions” – director of monitoring and authority activity efficiency estimation department under Ministry of regional development RF Maxim Reshetnikov said – “This evaluation alters monthly depending upon the situation in global markets, solutions, undertaken by the Government etc”.

The recession in industry affected not just mono-cities, though it was the most painful for population in these cities. Growth of industrial production in December 2008 was observed in 21 Russian regions, which had no serious industrial foundation before, for example in the cities of Russian South. Besides, industrial production has grown up in 9 of 26 Russian regions with low risks.

Maxim Reshtnikov has called Saint-Petersburg and Moscow as the exception. He said that the main reason of drop of tax collections in 12 regions, including Tatarstan, was because the intakes on profit taxes fell first. The highest decrease of investments by more than 20% in November 2008 was observed in Archangelsk, Irkutsk, Moscow and Sakhalin regions. Maxim Reshetnikov called freezing of investments the most popular response of business to the crisis and surmised that “investments will substantially drop in 2009 and the only hope is that the state will continue earlier planned investment projects. This step has to support the demand and to provide the infrastructure for further economic upsurge”.

Minister of regional development RF Viktor Basargin believes the program of anti-crisis measures, approved by Russian Government in 2009, promises to become the most efficient mechanism to stabilize social-economic situation in Russian regions.