Interfax: Oreshkin sees positive foreign investor sentiment regarding Russian economy recovery

(Interfax – GORKY, Oct. 16)

Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin said he saw positive sentiment among foreign investors regarding a recovery in the Russian economy.

“Today’s meeting was definitely characterized by overall positive sentiment regarding the fact that the Russian economy has begun to recover and that economic growth has taken off. Companies feel this in their financials,” Oreshkin said following a meeting of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council (FIAC).

Oreshkin said that foreign direct investment into the Russian economy reached $14 billion in the first half of the year. He said this showed that foreign businesses have once again begun to actively return to Russia and that they saw long-term development aims.

One of the issues raised on Monday was taxes. “FIAC members raised the issue of property taxes. All the decisions here have already been adopted by the government,” he said.

They also discussed tax deductions for foreign companies that come to build infrastructure. He said this problem also concerned Russian companies and that the government intended to work on this in the framework of a new initiative to provide infrastructure mortgages to refund taxes which are paid by companies building infrastructure facilities.

“The second point connected with the development of infrastructure is a new wave of investment in electricity. We discussed different approaches and so-called supply for Capacity Supply Agreement (CSA) 2. In other words, forming a base for stable investments in electricity and the development of the power sector,” Oreshkin said.

In addition, they discussed introducing online veterinary certifications and decided to postpone introducing these for some period in order to make the process of introducing and connecting new commodity groups go as smoothly as possible and not cause supply outages.

“A separate block discussed issues related to developing exports, including those of Russian companies in global production chains of various products. They talked about, among other things, food products and my ministry will work to help small businesses receive the certificates recognized by major companies around the world and, in this way, supply products to the companies themselves,” he said.

Oreshkin said one of the most important issues discussed on Monday was the creation of a predictable business environment, both from the point of view of macroeconomic policy and dynamics, as well as from the point of view of regulation.

“Today we talked about preparing new legislation on nontax payments for instance, which we have also been preparing for the past few months. And if it is accepted, there will also be stable conditions for companies, clarity, predictability and transparency,” the minister said, adding that he expected investments to continue to grow in upcoming years.