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Arctic development updated strategy should contain new social standards

As for the education sphere, the country will develop universities and colleges in the Arctic, where the demand for specialists with secondary professional education is very high

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Updated social standards aimed at improving the quality of life in the Russian Federation's Arctic Zone should be included in the updated Arctic development strategy. The strategy also needs to be updated with prospects for innovative and economic development, and with relations with neighboring countries, said experts interviewed by TASS.

According to press service of Deputy Prime Minister and the president's envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, federal authorities have been working in a number of directions, including assessment of hydraulic structures and production facilities involved in the repair and maintenance of the Arctic fleet, structuring the human resources demand, design and construction of emergency infrastructures in Khatanga, and resettlement of citizens from houses where most flats are empty.

"The new support measures will be effective for businesses in the Arctic and for social programs aimed at improving the quality of life there," Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunov told TASS. "We will ensure high-quality social services and comfortable housing, including by building up the housing construction, by cutting the share of dilapidated housing, and by landscaping the territory. Similar to the Far East, in the Arctic we plan to create a fund for affordable rental housing and to introduce a new construction standard - the Arctic Quarter."

As for the education sphere, the country will develop universities and colleges in the Arctic, where the demand for specialists with secondary professional education is very high. "They make 70% of the total staffing demand in the macroregion," the minister added. "We will build new modern laboratories and workshops at colleges to meet the needs of the economy."

The Arctic Development Project Office's Director General Maxim Dankin highlighted necessary updates of mechanisms to develop border areas with unfriendly countries, and territories where military formations are deployed. The country's president has ordered additional financing for the development of limited-access areas and settlements where the military are deployed. The second direction is the development of backbone settlements in the Arctic, where, the expert said, should be a new social security system for residents and where the Northern Sea Route's infrastructures are to be developed further on.

Why changes

According to Dankin, the changes have been caused by both foreign policy and internal reasons, including the freezing of cooperation between international institutions of the Arctic countries, the hostility of NATO member states towards the development of the Russian Arctic, the West's sanctions against Russia, and the country's focus on economic cooperation in the east.

"We are now in an era of the Special Military Operation and the sanctions, which has an impact on the economic and social development of the Arctic," Professor at the Economy Department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Sergey Nikonorov said. "In my opinion, it is necessary to continue relying on opinions of Arctic residents to structure the strategy from below."

The Arkhangelsk Region's Governor Alexander Tsybulsky said one of the main difficulties in building a development strategy for this macroregion is in a lack of knowledge of that territory in terms of spatial development and the low population in the Arctic. For example, he continued, the population density in the Arkhangelsk Region is 1.8 people per square kilometer, in the Nenets Autonomous Region - 0.24, in Chukotka - 0.07. As for the Arkhangelsk Region, out of its 3,900 rural settlements no people live in 9,000 settlements, and in most villages just between 6 and 25 people live nowadays.

"When speaking about a state approach to managing territories, we have to acknowledge that the government spending on these settlements is disproportionate to the contribution of those territories to the country's development. In my opinion, this is something we need to think about very seriously in order to build further work on development of the Arctic Zone with the greatest economic effect, and most importantly, with maximum effect for the people," the governor stressed, adding the backbone settlements' development may improve the quality of life in the Arctic.

Effect from Strategy 2020 and PPP

According to the minister, thanks to the Russian Arctic Development Strategy, adopted in 2020, the country has managed to respond to challenges of that time - first of all, to increase the macroregion's business attractiveness. The world's largest free economic zone, the Russian Federation's Arctic Zone, has been operating successfully, like three advanced-development territories - the Capital of the Arctic, the Capital of the North, and the Chukotka. The state has supported 935 investment projects with investments of 2 trillion rubles ($20 billion). Businesses have invested 641 billion rubles ($6.3 billion) and are creating about 43,000 jobs. The presidential envoy's press service highlighted the Arctic preferential mortgages at 2% per annum, where 8,000 families have purchased housing; the Arctic Hectare program has been launched; and more than 60 social facilities have been built or upgraded using the mechanism of a single presidential subsidy.

Public-private partnership would be useful in attracting investments into the Arctic economy, said Alexander Vorotnikov, Coordinator of the Expert Council of the Arctic Development Project Office, Associate Professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He considers the development of the Murmansk seaport, Russia's only ice-free port in the Arctic, where VEB.RF funds are involved, to be an example of this approach.

Sergey Verkhovets, Vice-President of the Siberian Federal University, believes innovative scientific and technical centers should be organized in the Arctic Zone, plus the region needs topical competitive research, and training of managers to work in specific Arctic conditions.

"Here, we must remember the North does not like small projects. Small-scales need to be excluded from both scientific and infrastructure practices. Such complex territories, in addition to comprehensive territorial planning, require comprehensive scientific and technological programs, networks of research stations at national and international levels," he said.