When we talk about economic activities that Russia is pursuing in Crimea, the news is what has already been done, and not a message about what they intend to do. Explain what it was about.
At the end of any public events that took place in Crimea over the past three years, Russian officials reported that they had investors willing to invest in occupied Crimea quite a lot of money. But yesterday we specifically colleagues and I analyzed the projects previously announced.
We found that since then I promised to draw for construction of refinery complex 9 billion rubles a year ago, — there is no news about its construction.
Similarly, today promised construction on the 8 billion complex somewhere in the Saksky area. But I can assume that it will suffer the same fate. That is, we did not find any news immediately after the end of the stage promises on camera.
For example, this year, the Russian officials reported that a businessman from Qatar is ready to invest in Crimea the project into several tens of millions of dollars. But when we began to look for the headquarters that of a businessman, we found that his company has no website and no social media. The company itself is, but it was in Doha at the address which was a local branch of KFC. And this is one of the world’s major brands, which is engaged in retail food.
And so many people had doubts if this office is able to invest tens of millions of dollars in the Crimea, a recreation center, why doesn’t she have a private separate office, website and social media pages?
All this suggests that these announced by Russian officials foreign investments in Crimea — no more than a puff and a Potemkin village. The only real investor in the Crimea is the Russian state. While these investments on the most favorable terms. For example, the reconstruction of the Simferopol airport was invested by the Bank “Russia”, which belongs to Mr. Timchenko and Mr. Kovalchuk. And it is those people, who are called close friends of Vladimir Putin. So here’s the credit, which they allocated for the construction of the Simferopol airport, moreover, that should be fully refundable, so even a 51% stake in the station will go to the Bank. These are ideal conditions for investment. But it is not Commerce, but just the same corruption, but corruption in the Russian style.
Today Russia, even when under sanctions, remains quite attractive for investors. The Russians at the hands continue to be quite a high amount of accumulated money. There is a high purchasing power. But Crimea is not the Russian Federation. And the rules that apply in the Crimea is not the rules that are somewhere in the Saratov region. Even for the Russian Federation of Crimea continues to be an island which has no land borders. Any imposition of business on the territory of Crimea is fraught not only hit by the sanctions, it simply does not carry high profit margins. All the goods in the Crimea it is necessary to import by means of sea transport, taking into account the workload of the crossing — not an easy task.
Crimea remains highly subsidized region in the Russian Federation. Again, the only real investor in the Crimean economy is the Russian budget. And neither of which is really a full-fledged investment climate in the territory annexed the Ukrainian Peninsula of speech can not go.
