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Disputes about TOPs: Do we lose the idea?

Rostislav Turovsky

Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor of HSE, Scientific Editor East Russia

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Special project TORA and Free Port

Rostislav Turovsky, Vice-President of the Center for Political Technologies:

- The question of the number and location of TORs is still open. The bill suggests their creation only on the territory of the Far Eastern Federal District, i.e. In the sphere of influence of the Minsk region. At the same time, the state program covers not only Transbaikalia, but also the Baikal region, includes Buryatia and the Irkutsk region. One can expect that these regions will also demand that they be allowed to create TORs, and their interest is quite natural and reasonable.

The procedure for placing TORs in the Far East remains unclear. For example, will there be TOPs in each constituent entity of the Federation, which regions manage to get not one, but several TOPs? It is unclear where the TOPs are likely to be located. The bill contains only a mention that the TOP cannot be closer than 50 km from a million-plus city, but this requirement is meaningless, since there are no such cities in the Far East and are not expected. This requirement can only be regarded as a hint that TORs are intended for the development of peripheries, not centers, i.e. can be created in medium-sized cities such as Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in the "open field", around new deposits of minerals, etc.

Perhaps, larger and more successful regions from the point of view of lobbying will receive more TORs. Clearly more prerequisites for their creation are the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, as well as the Amur Region. The idea is that the TORs in Kamchatka are necessary, it is hardly possible to "bypass" the Jewish Autonomous Region, which needs additional incentives. At the same time, the SEZ regime operates in the Magadan region, Sakhalin is considered an already successful region, and Chukotka is too "weak" in terms of labor resources. Although lobbying processes can lead to another geography of placement of TORs.

Media News2

It is important that, without an answer and due analysis, the question remains as to why the institute of the SEZ did not take place in the Far East, although when it was created, officials said that this macro-region was a priority. But the reality is that in the Far East only two SEZs were created - the port in the Khabarovsk region in Sovetskaya Gavan and the tourist and recreational in the Primorsky region on the Russian island, and neither earned, attracted residents.

Thus, the experience of the SEZ suggests that the decision to create a territory with a special regime in Russia does not at all mean that this territory will begin to "work". It is likely that there will not be a single resident in the TOPs, or there will be very few of them. It is extremely important not to create dozens of piles of dummies, and there are such risks - because of active lobbying and too excessive approach, when the appetite comes with food and the quantity will be more important than the quality of each TOR.

Full text: http://eastrussia.ru/region/5/2345/