KALUGA, January 2 (Itar-Tass) — The Kaluga region experience demonstrates that there are no insurmountable obstacles for other regions for the drawing of investments, Russian Deputy Economic Development Minister Sergei Belyakov told a roundtable held in Kaluga at the end of December 2012. Taking part in the meeting were more than 50 heads of Russia’s regions, as well as representatives of enterprises operating in the Kaluga region, an official at the governor’s PR department told Itar-Tass back then.
The participants in the roundtable focused on the ways for the increase of the investments attractiveness of Russia’s region. While speaking about conditions necessary for the successful development of the investment component of the Russian regions, Belyakov stated, “The Kaluga region lives by the federal legislation. But it is a leader because the region puts forth its own initiative and ideas for the implementation of that task.”
Governor of the Kaluga Region Anatoly Artamonov introduced to the participants in the meeting the region’s experience of activity aimed at the drawing of investments and creating an efficient system of contacts with business partners. So, he stated, the region received more than 53 billion roubles (USD 1 = RUB 30.37) of investments, including about 24 billion roubles of foreign investments, over the first eleven months of the preceding year.
Presidential Aide Yuri Trutnev believes that the Kaluga region’s experience may be very useful for other regions and for the country in general.
A plant of Germany’s Volkswagen Group Rus company, which is the biggest investor in Russia’s automobile building industry, hosted the roundtable. So, the company has invested more than one billion euros in the Kaluga-based enterprise and in the design of new cars specifically for Russia in the period since 2006, the company’s representative said. In the next three years, the company is willing to invest 840 million euros more in the Russia’s car-making industry. About 250 million euros of that sum will be spent for the construction of a new engine-making facility. A relevant agreement was signed by Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn and the Kaluga Region’s governor in August 2012.
“High indicators of efficiency and success of the Volkswagen Group Rus plant in Kaluga testify to the investment attractiveness of Russia’s region. Long-term prospects of development on the Russian market, all-round support of the regional administration, as well as the favourable economic situation in the country as a whole are important prerequisites for the drawing of new investors,” Director of the Volkswagen Group Rus plant in Kaluga Josef Baumert told the roundtable back then.
In order to familiarize themselves with the actual achievements of the regional investment policy, the participants in the meeting visited the Kraftway electronic equipment plant in Obninsk, the Samsung Electronics Run Kaluga facility in the Borovsk district, as well as the Peugeot-Citroen-Mitsubishi Automobiles Rus enterprise in Kaluga.