The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, the Association of Clusters, Technoparks and SEZ of Russia (AKIT) are launching an educational program “Leaders of Territorial Development: Creation and development of SEZ” for management teams planning to create SEZ in the region, as well as for SEZ managers. This was reported at the general meeting of AKIT members.
“The purpose of the program is to train regional management teams to create and develop territories with preferential treatment in industrial, technical and innovation, logistics and tourism activities. The program is designed for 2 years: participants will be trained to create a SEZ from scratch – to select a site for the implementation of a project for the creation and development of a SEZ, project preparation, management features, development of a master plan, zoning of the territory, development of a financial model of the project and a portfolio of services of the management company,” said Deputy Minister of Economic Development Sergey Galkin.
At the second stage of the training, participants will receive theoretical and practical skills to reduce the timing of the SEZ being created to its design capacity, attract new residents, increase the inflow of investments into the SEZ, introduce the fundamentals of the principles of sustainable development in the SEZ (green agenda), etc.
“This program is needed like air today, it is in the territories of the SEZ – already operating and those that will only be created – that production facilities should be developed that will help our country to withstand unprecedented Western sanctions. In addition, a real economic war has now been unleashed against Russia, many companies that were registered in unfriendly countries will return to Russian jurisdiction and, of course, in most cases become residents of the SEZ. Therefore, I am very grateful to the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, Minister Maxim Gennadyevich Reshetnikov, supervising Deputy Minister Sergey Galkin, Director of the Department of Regional Development Igor Viktorovich Egorov for their joint work in this direction. Our joint training program will be of key importance for the development of the SEZ in the coming years,” said Andrey Shpilenko, Director of the Association of Clusters, Technoparks and SEZ of Russia.
The general meeting of AKIT members was attended by the heads of about 15 special economic zones of Russia from
Moscow, Tatarstan, Moscow, Omsk, Samara, Lipetsk, Vladimir, Orenburg and Pskov regions.
“The educational program will increase business interest in such sites, which will subsequently lead to the creation of new jobs for residents of the region,” said Ekaterina Zinovieva, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Investment, Industry and Science of the Moscow Region.
“The implementation of the educational program for the SEZ is very relevant, because in today’s conditions, competencies are of particular importance, allowing you to quickly adapt to the new conditions of the functioning of the domestic economy, to make the transition to import substitution of critical products,” said Anton Afanasyev, General Director of JSC SEZ TVT Dubna.
At the moment, 43 SEZs have been created, in which more than 970 residents operate, more than 630 billion rubles of investments have been invested out of 1.4 trillion rubles declared. Recently, the demand from regions and investors for the SEZ mechanism has grown significantly.