MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Three new major business projects with investment exceeding 2 bln rubles ($22.5 mln) that will provide over 400 jobs, will be launched in South Ossetia shortly, Russia’s Deputy Economic Development Minister Dmitry Volvach said during his working trip to Tskhinvali.

Representatives of the ministry and relevant federal agencies headed by Volvach have paid a three-day working visit to South Ossetia, according to information on the Russian ministry’s website. The Russian delegation took a look at progress of the works at facilities that are being constructed or reconstructed in South Ossetia as part of implementation of joint investment programs in the area of the republic’s socio-economic development in 2023-2025.

"The launch of three new projects with investment exceeding 2 bln rubles will become a major development for expansion of the republic’s economy in the near future. This is a project on creation in South Ossetia of manufacturing of basalt fibre, a project on natural stone processing and the launch of a plant on fruit and vegetable processing. The implementation of those projects will allow creating around 400 jobs and ensure additional tax payments to the republic’s budget," Volvach said.

The presence of the own resource base in close vicinity to production sites that will allow reducing the production cost, satisfying the republic’s demand for respective products and raising its competitiveness both on the domestic and on the Russian market, makes each of those three projects unique, he noted.

A source in South Ossetia’s cabinet of ministers told TASS earlier that there is a possibility of receiving a subsidized loan in Russian credit organizations within a state program for 2022-2025. For doing this an interagency committee preliminarily selects projects received by the republic’s Economic Development Ministry that are later submitted to the Russian Economic Development Ministry for consideration and for a decision to be taken with a credit organization on subsidized financing of the project.