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Russia's gate to Europe
Realizing everything planned in the framework of this project will require considerable means that are going to be acquired from various sources, but the work of creating the powerful transport complex has already commenced in many directions and is now expanding. This year, the building of a terminal processing 15 thousand containers a year will be for the most part finished in the third seaport district; the building of an oil terminal will be continued in the fourth district, and Mintrans is going to invest 250 billion rubles into the creation of motor trains to service the terminals in the nearest future. A number of foreign companies submitted suggestions to invest into the building of refrigerator and sugar terminals with corresponding annual capacities of 0.8 and 1 million tons in the second district. Three restored ferry lines started to operate on the Rotterdam, Kiel and Oxelsund directions. The building of Pulkovo-3 International airport comprising a complex service zone with terminals, customs, logistics center and a hotel, will be commenced this year. At the same time, a number of economic and managerial measures directed towards the improving of the attractiveness of our transport infrastructure is being carried out, new projects of expanding the transport center are being analyzed as well as various schemes of their financing. A couple of dozens of new stevedoring companies have appeared and are now actively operating. Their share of the total amount of processed exported and imported cargo has reached 44%. Since the beginning of this year at the request of city authorities, seaport duties were optimized by the JSC St.Petersburg seaport: a 50% discount on the ship tax was introduced from 12th to 24th docking and in future this tax is planned to be totally eliminated. Other standards have been changed too, it is the beginning of the introduction of a new flexible tariff and duty system creating a maximum favourability mode for the seaport customers. We are hoping that the final determination of whether the St.Petersburg Ring road should be built and also of the schedule of this global scale work will be achieved in the nearest future. I am talking about the section of the M-10 road (Finland State border — St.Petersburg — Moscow) which is being reconstructed and which is an extension of the E-18 highway — the most important part of the 9th transport corridor (EC terminology). The city government has discussed the investment conditions in relation to the right to build seaport and technical complexes in the building bases area for those who wish to do it. The realization of these decisions will advance the time of building the western semicircle ring road along the perimeter of the flood protection facilities. The agreement for designing the eastern semicircle at the expense of the Federal Road Fund was achieved. Recently, the October railway has presented interesting suggestions and initiatives. The objective is to switch a considerable part of cargo circulation from the car transport over to the railway. All prerequisites for this are available. From the institution selling transport services the railway is transforming into a partner for its customers. A center of high-quality transport services has appeared here, taking upon itself all duties connected with cargo registration including customs and insurance services, offering safe storage of cargo, carrying out marketing studies etc. A refrigerator container train has started to operate between the St.Petersburg seaport and Moscow, other measures allowing the improvement of the efficiency and volume of transportation were taken. This fact is evidence that the idea of transport flows management in St.Petersburg and around it has matured and is worthy of support of all kinds. It can be created on sharing conditions with the joint participation of all transport companies and it will become an important step towards the introduction of logistics, electronic means of document transfer and other modern methods of work in the transport environment. Even such a brief survey of everything that is done or has to be done for the realization of the “Russia’s gate to Europe” project describes the wide circle of problems it is covering, the various fields of the economy it is touching upon, requiring the attention of experts working in very different branches of the national economy. To our opinion, it is one of the major centers of effort application which can concentrate finances, orders, experts around itself and make many other branches of economy work. That is why it is the transport infrastructure problems that link together all other issues to be discussed at the St.Petersburg Economic Forum. Naturally, the questions of the joint activity of the city and the region will also be discussed as well as other problems of major importance like joining the world economic connections, forming uniform markets of labor and housing in the CIS, interregional level collaboration in the Arctic zone, in space and in a number of other branches of industry. The problems of small and medium-scale business development, transnational structures and industrial cooperation will also be studied closely. I think that western entrepreneurs will also be interested in the issues suggested for discussion — we will allow them to learn about the concrete projects and business collaboration conditions. I hope that an atmosphere of mutual understanding will be established at this meeting and that the days spent in the Northern capital of Russia, a unique appearance of the city on the Neva, the beauty of the midnight sun — all this would help to promote the further deepening of friendly and creative relations between the countries.
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Petersburg, which opened the western way for Russia three hundred years ago and became a center of attraction for western investors, still remains a city with great potential. Our task is to explore these opportunities, to develop them in the best possible way in order to enhance our city’s wealth. We cannot offer our customers natural minerals or raw materials, however we have quite a lot of scientific ideas, project developments, and, what is the most important today, we have an already established and functioning but requiring reconstruction and development transport infrastructure. A project for its expansion, supported by President Boris Yeltsin, named “Russia’s gate to Europe” is exceedingly important for the economy of the entire country and of other CIS states. In our opinion, it is the realization of this project that can quickly reanimate the economy in the North-West region and in many other locations of our country.