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Crimea and Sevastopol

Medvedev to chair session on free economic zone in Crimea

The session will look into bills drafted by the Ministry of Crimean Affairs, amendments to the Russian Tax Code and some other legislative acts

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev Alexander Astafyev/TASS

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev

© Alexander Astafyev/TASS

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MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will chair a session on Wednesday on a special economic zone in Crimea, the government press service reports.

The session will look into bills drafted by the Ministry of Crimean Affairs, amendments to the Russian Tax Code and some other legislative acts as a new federal law on a special economic zone is under way.

The aim of this activity is to attract investment, develop transport and other infrastructure, tourism, agriculture and Crimea’s resort zone, government sources said.

Besides, the bills “envisage the creation of more favorable, than generally established in the Russian Federation, conditions for certain types of entrepreneurship and other economic activity through the introduction of special legal treatment” in Crimea, they said.

The Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov believes a special economic zone should be operating for 25-50 years “so that business could see a long-term prospect.”

It is expected that the special economic regime will include a lower income tax, a lower value-added tax, as well as the cancellation of import VAT. Aksyonov believes these benefits should apply to the tourism sector, agriculture, industry and construction sector of the republic.

Aksyonov said regional experts also proposed setting up a Crimean investment agency to attract investors, deal with investment projects and organize a regular Black Sea economic forum on the peninsula.

He said Crimea’s authorities were looking at creating a kind of a Crimean Silicon Valley in the territory of the peninsula. “I am sure we must look at a possible establishment of a sort of Silicon Valley that would host advanced communications and microelectronics facilities, and a Crimean technology park… For these ends, it would be expedient to consider setting up a Crimean branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,” he said.

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Crimea and Sevastopol Dmitry Medvedev Sergey Aksyonov

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