There are more and more Russians willing to send their officials to Siberia. With the suggestion of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, it looks like that it is materializing. He put forward an idea to move a portion of state-owned companies to the Far East. The government is to discuss the suggestion and draw up a detailed plan on transferring headquarters of some of major state corporations and authorities. This initiative was the result of the meeting dedicated to development issues for Russia’s Far East, Plenipotentiary Presidential Representative in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev said. However, there is no list on certain authorities and organizations to be moved, but the scheme on relocation of the staff, headquarters, and tax base for state-owned companies has been already worked out. Also, according to Trutnev, the government settled the terms of the project development with preliminary suggestions to be presented at the next meeting on the Far East issues. The draft law on territories of advanced development in the Far East will also be reviewed there. The law provides introduction of additional benefits for income taxes and wages to back businesses and investment climate in the region. In total, the government plans to allocate 3.3 trillion rubles on the Far East development by 2020 with one budget ruble in ten invested by businesses. The Far East Development Corporation will provide extra support. Its assets are estimated at 170 billion rubles. Previous development models of this part of Russia were said to be ineffective. So now they will be reviewed and perhaps the government will decide to create a tax haven zone there in order to boost the attractiveness of Russia’s Far East for businesses. In 2013, Vladimir Putin criticized the work of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and laid special stress to this issue. As a result, the former Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy Viktor Ishayev lost his position.
