MOSCOW, April 10. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is confident that Crimea will become a donor region in the coming years.

“This territory has enormous economic potential,” Putin told members of the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF) movement on Thursday. “I think Crimea will turn from a beneficiary region into a donor region over the next few years. It has everything for that.”

Putin said it was possible to create not a big one but quite an effective industry in Crimea.

“There is good recreation on the south coast and a very promising infrastructure,” he said, adding that developing the peninsula in a right way would produce “immediate and notable results”.

Russian Film Director Stanislav Govorukhin, a co-chairman of the Central Headquarters of the All-Russia People’s Front, thanked Putin for his firm and courageous stance in the days that were crucial for Russia (when a decision to incorporate Crimea was made). Govorukhin said that until recently many Russians had suffered “from phantom pain that a small isle of their homeland had been sliced off from Mother Russia.”

“Now we are reunited. Thank you very much,” Govorukhin told Putin.