VLADIVOSTOK, July 30 (Itar-Tass) - Implementation of the BAM-2 /Baikal-Amur Mainline II/ project will help create about 500,000 new jobs where highly qualified workforce will be required, according to Viktor Ishayev, Minister for Development of the Far East and Russian President’s plenipotentiary representative in the Far-Eastern Federal District.
This he said commenting on a meeting devoted to railways development in the Far East that was held last Friday under Vladimir Putin’s chairmanship.
In the course of the conference, Putin told the government to draft a detailed schedule of further steps aimed at a modernization of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
“In essence, the upgrading of the BAM has already begun and we hope its annual throughput capacity will go up to 50 million tons of cargos, as the deposits of copper and coal in Southern Yakutia and the Amur region will come on stream and the demand of these raw materials is growing in the Asia Pacific countries,” Putin said.
He also noted a rapid enough development of new seaports in the Far East.
According to Ishayev, ramification of the network of railways in the Far East will have an accumulative effect on other branches of economy.
“Reconstruction of the railway line as such will bring up the construction of one more tunnel, electrization, construction of a second track, and the launching of operations at mechanical engineering factories,” Ishayev said.
“This will make it possible for us to create some 200,000 new jobs for highly qualified workers,” he said. “Other branches of the economy like trade, services, banks, the construction of new enterprises, and the banking sector will be emerging, too, and all of this will lead to the emergence of 500,000 or so new jobs.”
“The federal budget will get supplementary revenues in the amount of around 700 billion rubles /USD 1=RUB 32.5/,” Ishayev said in conclusion. “There will be a considerable increase in the gross product while the Gross Regional Product of the Far-Eastern regions will go up some 25% in practical terms.”
“A growth of cargo haulage along BAM will create the grounds for inviting highly qualified specialists to the Far East and will raise the average living standards here,” he said in conclusion.