Republic of Altai suggested serious amendments to the federal law on tourism. Novosibirsk Metallurgical Plant will start operations again if there is partner ready to work on tolling schemes. Siberian Anthracite struck a deal with the Swiss Glencore. The city of Tomsk needs additional bank loan to cover its budget’s obligatory payments. Look for details in the weekly review of events by FederalPress.
Republic of Altai suggested serious amendments to the federal law on tourism. Novosibirsk Metallurgical Plant will start operations again if there is partner ready to work on tolling schemes. Siberian Anthracite struck a deal with the Swiss Glencore. The city of Tomsk needs additional bank loan to cover its budget’s obligatory payments. Look for details in the weekly review of events by FederalPress.
Tour operators need education
Committee on economic policy, entrepreneurship and tourism of the Republic of Altai put forward a legislative initiative to amend the federal law on tourism. It is suggested that directors of the tour agencies and tour operators should have appropriate education and at least 3 years of work experience in the sphere of tourism. The opposition states that such changes will create additional barriers in entrepreneurship. The final decision will be made by the State Duma.
Another offer of the Committee concerns raising guarantee reserves of the tour agencies and tour operators. For companies offering domestic and incoming tour services the required guarantee amounts to 0.5 million rubles. For outgoing tourism the guarantee amount depends on the profits. For agencies with the profits less than 100 million rubles the financial guarantee will make at least 30 million rubles. 100-500 million rubles of profits will require guarantee of at least 100 million rubles, for 500 million rubles profits – at least 500 million rubles of guarantee reserve.
Political conflict
Altai Region political life was shaken by a serious conflict between a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Aleksey Bagaryakov and a United Russia deputy and head of the party’s fraction in Altai’s Regional Legislative Assembly Boris Trofimov. Aleksey Bagaryakov accuses the latter in spreading information which jeopardizes his business reputation.
Nickel and aluminum are not trustworthy materials
Budget profits of Krasnoyarsk Region dropped by a quarter in Q1 2009 compared to 2008. The budget received only 17.5 billion rubles instead of 22.7 billion.
Bad indices of the social and economic development influenced the budget profits in this period, said Mikhail Kotyukov.
The amount of budget expenses made 24.2 billion rubles, which is 16% of the annual plan. The regional government has already corrected the budget due to falling prices of non-ferrous metals. The new parameters of the budget were based on the nickel price of $ 10 000 per ton, aluminum price – $ 1400 per ton.
Problems of RUSAL
RUSAL paid 776 million rubles to Boguchansk hydroelectric power station to cover debts and wages for the first quarter of 2009. However the company’s outstanding debt is nearly 1.7 billion rubles more. If RUSAL fails to find this money, Boguchansk complex may stop functioning in its current status.
Government of Krasnoyarsk Region thinks that increasing influence of RusHydro in the project is quite realistic. If Oleg Deripaska can’t find money and fulfill obligations of the complex construction, then he will be forced to give his shares in the project, Evgeny Tsvetkov told FederalPress.
Metal industry in Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk Metallurgical Plant named after Kuzmin, where operations stopped half a year ago, has been transferred under the control of structures affiliated with Bin-Bank, the first vice-governor Vasily Yurchenko said.
Governor Viktor Tolokonsky offered to employ tolling agreement schemes for the Plant’s recovery: the facility will get raw materials, produce goods and return them to raw material supplier to cover material costs. Viktor Tolokonsky intends to negotiate with Evraz Holding regarding this issue.
Siberian Anthracite, one of the world’s major producers of hard coal, has reached an agreement with one of the world’s biggest raw material traders, Glencore. Siberian Anthracite, which extracted 3 million tons of anthracite in 2008, plans to supply 0.5 million tons annually for the new partner in the period of 2009-2011.
The company also is likely to correct its investment plans of production intensification. “The coal market doesn’t demonstrate the same dynamics of consumption today”, Vasily Yurchenko commented.
Economy dynamics
The first vice-governor Valery Yurchenko confirmed last week that the regional economy is quite optimistic. Q1 2009 showed only 0.9% fall of industrial production and 9.4% rise of agricultural production. Prognosis is optimistic despite of 20% reduction of investments.
The region approved of the three investment projects for 2009: production of dry fodder for cattle, modernization of a Brick Plant, construction of a net of animal production units and a Milk-processing Plant.
Tomsk budget troubles
Last week major’s office of Tomsk suggested that the city budget expenses should be cut by 18.7%, profits – by 10.2%. The City Duma approved of the amendments. The social sphere will be most influenced by this decision.
Tomsk administration plans to get a bank loan to re-finance the loan from VTB taken in 2008. But the new loan will cover only two thirds of the necessary expenses. Budget workers may not get their salaries on time.