Ministry: More than 300 companies become Arctic business residents

MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The number of the Russian Federation’s Arctic Zone residents exceeded 300, the Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic said adding tourism is the most popular sector.

“Over slightly more than one year, the number of new projects, being implemented in the Russian Federation’s Arctic Zone with the state support, has exceeded 300,” the ministry’s press service said. “New facilities and jobs, offered to the Northern residents, appear in logistics, mining, fish processing, agriculture and other sectors.”

The most popular business direction is tourism, the press service added.

In terms of the number of projects, the leader is the Murmansk Region – every third resident works in that region (113 projects). The second place is taken by the Arkhangelsk Region with 98 projects. They are followed by Karelia (33 projects), the Yamalo-Nenets Region (26 projects), Komi (15 projects), the Krasnoyarsk Region (10 projects), Chukotka, Yakutia and the Nenets Region (8, 7 and 2 projects respectively).

The announced investments are more than 367.6 billion rubles ($4.8 billion). The businesses will offer about 14,500 jobs. The current investments have made 19 billion rubles ($248 million). The residents implement 68 tourism projects. Other leading directions are services, transport and logistics, real estate and development (43, 39 and 31 projects respectively).

“With every year, the Murmansk Region has been attracting more tourists,” the press service quoted the region’s Deputy Governor Olga Kuznetsova as saying. “We expect the number of guests will double within a few years and we will welcome a million tourists, thus we focus on development of the infrastructures.”

About incentives

Business residents in the Arctic zone are exempt from property and profit taxes, for ten years they make lower insurance payments, which are subsidized by the state. Additionally, the government compensates for bank loans’ interest rates. The companies face easier formalities in customs procedures and in obtaining land plots.

The Russian Federation’s Arctic Zone takes territories of nine regions – four of them are fully in the Arctic zone, and five – only partially. The Arctic region takes 4.8 million square kilometers, or 28% of the country’s territory. The Arctic population is 2.6 million people, or 1.7% of Russia’s population.