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Favourable investment climate in 28 Russian regions

MOSCOW, October 16 (Itar-Tass) - Twenty-eight Russian regions have a favourable investment climate, says the latest Business Pulse rating. Business conditions are put at neutral in 26 other regions while negative estimates prevail in 21 areas, say figures released on Wednesday.

Assessments gauge the business environment across the regions, taking in business sentiment, development dynamics in companies and people’s attitudes to business alongside the effectiveness of business and regulator relations, regulation quality, and available infrastructure. The survey covered 65,800 respondents in 75 regions over the past month.

Those polled suggest a neutral view of relations between business and its regulators, 47.2 points on a scale where negative estimates stand below 30 points and positive above 65, as well as business conditions, scoring 44.

Enterprises’ development dynamics came in closer to the positive zone at 52.3, whereas people’s attitude to business was positive at 58.7. According to the proposed method, the aggregate estimate of Russia's investment climate is 50.5.

A final rating divided regions into three groups according to positive and negative estimates for the given indicators. The first group gathering most positive estimates included 28 regions. Besides traditional leaders in investment ratings, namely the Republic of Tatarstan and Kaluga region, the group included the regions of Central Russia, East Siberia, and the Far East, northern regions famous for oil and gas extraction, as well as two North Caucasian republics, Karachay Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

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