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About 40 Arctic projects may be in Russia's Yamal backbone zone — governor

The working draft of the state program on development of the Arctic includes eight geographic backbone zones

SOCHI, February 27. /TASS/. About 40 projects may be in the backbone zone in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, which may be organized under the state program for development of the Arctic, the District’s Governor Dmitry Kobylkin told TASS during the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi on Monday.

"As for the projects to be parts of Yamal’s backbone zone, I think they will be 40 small ones," he said. "Those are projects, we have discussed already, and as for the big ones, they, I think, will not be more than 2-4, and focused on oil and gas as the region is an oil-and-gas region."

The government continued saying Yamal had participated actively in discussing of the backbone zones in the Arctic.

"It is unusual for us - to be forming a backbone zone, we have not lived in one, we do not realize quite well the very procedure - how it will go, what it will bring," he said. "In formation of a backbone zone the region insisted on independence, first of all, so that to keep in the region as much money as possible to use it for further development."

The working draft of the state program on development of the Arctic, there are eight geographic backbone zones: Kola, Arkhangelsk, Nenets, Vorkuta, Yamal-Nenets, Taimyr-Turukhan, North Yakutia and Chukotka. The objective is production of technical means and technologies, environment monitoring, raising living conditions of the indigenous low-numbered peoples, implementation of the information policy and others.

This year’s forum in Sochi focuses on three major topics: "Projects for Life," "Improving Business Performance: Opportunities for Growth," and "New Regional Policy: Opportunities for Development." TASS is the forum’s general information partner and official photo host agency.