ISSN 20799705, Regional Research of Russia, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 397–404. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2013. Original Russian Text © V.A. Kryukov, V.V. Kuleshov, V.E. Seliverstov, 2012, published in Region: Ekonomika i Sotsiologiya, 2012, No. 1, pp. 102–122.
INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT
Formation of Organizational and Economic Mechanisms for the Acceleration of Siberia’s Socioeconomic Development V. A. Kryukov, V. V. Kuleshov, and V. E. Seliverstov Institute of Economic and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia email:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] Received January 6, 2012
Abstract—The problems of formation of organizational and economic mechanisms necessary to strengthen the position of Siberia in the economic space of the country were reviewed. The proposals refer to the refor mation of the state regional policy and modernization of the regional strategic planning, provision of the implementation of the “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia” and breakthroughs innovations in Siberian regions, and economic mechanisms of production development in this macroregion. A special emphasis is placed on measures for the fundamental modernization of Siberia’s mineral resource complex. Keywords: Siberia, regions, mechanisms, regional policy, strategic planning, development strategies DOI: 10.1134/S2079970513040059
At present, the Siberian macroregion is far from completely using its rich economic and environmental potential; the region’s development within the last decade has been affected by its strengthened raw material specialization on the basis of renewal of large scale production and export supplies of energy resources, nonferrous metals, and timber. A signifi cant lag in the economic growth of the most important regions of Siberia, such as Krasnoyarsk krai and Irkutsk and Kemerovo oblasts, being the backbone of the economic area of Asian Russia, has become a wor rying trend. The differentiation in the levels of devel opment in the Siberian regions and social disparities has increased, and some territories are in a state of major depression. To a great extent, it was a result of the spatial policy implemented in the country concen trated almost entirely on the support of two metropol itan agglomerations, problem territories of the North Caucasus, and financing of extremely resourceinten sive regional imageenhancing projects. Under these conditions, the Siberians increasingly feel that they have been forgotten about and are only a periphery, and processes of stratification of authorities and society are more and more clearly forming in Siberian regions and cities which is reflected in the protest electoral prefer ences of a significant part of the population. All that points to the fact that the development of the eastern districts of the Russian Federation and, first of all, Siberia needs serious state support, which should be concentrated within the system of new man agement policy: regional, social, investment, scien tific, and technical. The wave of increased attention of supreme power to the problems of Siberia should not be a single action, because many people understand it as measures of preelection campaigns. It should be a
comprehensive, systematic, and interrelated work of authorities, business, science, and institutions of civil society with clearly formed liabilities and responsibili ties. Separate actions (even being vital and important) will not provide the expected result and will only delay the scenario of Siberia’s development as a fuel and rawmaterial appendage of European part of Russia and the rest of the world, excluding the formation of a highly efficient, innovative, and socially oriented economy in this macroregion. At that, it is necessary to understand that a considerable part of the Siberian problems should be solved not only by means of imple mentation of economic and socially oriented projects in the territory of the macroregion itself but also based on changing the common institutional conditions through the whole economic space of Russia which at present actually do not allow for performing tasks for the acceleration of the development of the country’s east and formation of an efficient economy and a modern living environment here. Therefore, the authors’ proposals on the acceleration of Siberia’s socioeconomic development and increasing invest ments and the social attraction of Siberian regions can be combined according to the main directions given below. NATIONAL REGIONAL POLICY, ITS NEW INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES, AND MODERNIZATION OF REGIONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING At present, a necessary system of laws, regulating the system of state support of Siberia’s development and its regions, is almost absent. Also, there are no documents of state strategic planning where the
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national priorities as to the development of the coun try’s eastern territories are fixed. A strategy of territo rial (spatial) development of Russia, i.e., the main conceptual document, which should specify and con firm by law the spatial priorities of Russia’s develop ment in the long term in the framework of national security and stable development of the whole country, has not been developed by now. The basic directions of Siberia’s development and the position of the state as regards certain directions of support of this strategi cally important Russian macroregion should be defined exactly in this document. The existing prac tice of reducing all global and strategic problems or spatial arrangement of the Russian economy and society (which, due to the country’s specific charac ter require especially largescale and ingenious solu tions) only to one of many sections of the Concept of Longterm Socioeconomic Development of the Rus sian Federation is clearly inadequate for the specified targets. The federal laws on state regional policy and state strategic planning have not been enacted yet. More over, different departments develop drafts of these laws; as a result, they are weakly associated with each other in the ideological and conceptual terms, although they are aimed at improving the state regula tion of the country’s territorial development. The draft law On State Strategic Development, written by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, is morally obsolete even though it has not been implemented yet. The draft law On State Regional Policy, developed by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation, also has significant conceptual and systematic defects. The absence of such laws only stimulate random actions by central authorities in relation to Siberia, does not make possible the understanding of the role of national and foreign business in the implementation of investment projects in the territory of the macrore gion. A great achievement was the development of the “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia for the Period up to 2020” and the approval of this document by the Russian government in 2010. How ever, there are serious problems associated with its integration with the federal target problem “Develop ment of the Far East and TransBaikalia.” Taking into account that under modern conditions the price and value of the adoption of right strategic solutions concerning the development perspectives of Russian macroregions (including Siberia) increase; that Siberia and the Far East have similar problems, risks, and threats of development; that a necessity appears to implement state regulation of the develop ment of the North and Arctic regions, to which vast Siberian territories belong, the authors suggest that the following is reasonable: —develop the “Strategy of Territorial (Spatial) Development of Russia for the period up to 2030,”
where the field and system of the country’s strategic territorial development priorities should be clearly specified; —accelerate the adoption of the federal laws On State Regional Policy and On State Strategic Plannig; it should be done in “package mode,” based on unified conceptual and ideological positions; —prepare and adopt the Federal Law On the Development of the Eastern Parts of Russia as Territo ries of Special Geostrategic and Economic Interests of the State,” where the position of the state on the pre vention of the desolation of the territory in the east of the country and contraction the economic space here should be clearly specified; —increase significantly the value of strategic plan ning and management (including regional strategic planning) and for this purpose establish the National Board for Strategic Planning with wide authorities and attract to this board, besides representatives of the gov ernment, also representatives of business structures, professional unions, science and expert society, citi zens, etc. The president or prime minister of Russia should preside over this board. It is reasonable to arrange similar institutional structures under the offices of the plenipotentiary representatives of the president of Russia in federal districts and in each federal subject; —start preparing for the formation of a new prior ity national project—“The Russian North and Arctic under the Conditions of Global Challenges of the 21st Century”—as an important action of the state aimed at the implementation of new approaches to the devel opment of resources of the North and Arctic, realiza tion of new integration projects (transport, energy, and social) in the northern and circumpolar zones apply ing principles of resource and economic complemen tarity of the economic complexes of the northern and southern regions of the European and Asian parts of Russia, interaction between northern and southern territories (including solving problems of moderniza tion and respecialization of regions’ economies), state support of the North, solving problems of indigenous peoples, etc.; —implement significant measures of state support to form a new large center of concentration of Russia’s economic activities in the southern latitude belt of Siberia, in order to overcome the rawmaterial spe cialization of the Siberian regions, develope the sys tem of advanced processing of raw materials and fuel mined in Siberia with an emphasis on the manufactur ing of products with a high added value. Southern lat itude belt of Siberia should damp the spatial gap between the concentration points of the elements of the county’s production forces, provide significant savings in transport costs, contribute to the transfer of entire Siberia to an innovation way of development, and bear the main load of the implementation of new intraRussian and international (towards the Middle and Central Asia) integration links;
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—establish a territorial representative office of the Russian Ministry of Regional Development not only with wide control and management authorities but also with the right to perform inspections of large pro grams and projects brought forward by administrations of the federal subjects (especially in the case when they refer to the interests of adjacent territories, with the right and obligation to arrange works on the formation of longterm development strategies in relevant mac roregions). PROVISION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SIBERIA’S SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY The “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia for the Period up to 2020” with all its impor tance, relevancy, and progressiveness is to a greater degree an “ideological” document, where the position of authorities and scientific community as to the per spectives of development of this macroregion is set out. The presence of a strategy of the macroregion’s development is not directly connected with the appro priation of federal financing for its measures. The strategy is not an element of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation (in spite of it being a federal target program), and it is impossible to allocate assets for its implementation through official items of the state budget. That is why the logical steps in developing some certain works on the implementation of the strategy of Siberia’s socioeconomic development should be the following: —acceleration of the adoption of a plan of mea sures on the implementation of the strategy; —development and approval of a new federal tar get program “Implementation of the Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia.” For this purpose, it is necessary to prepare a feasibility evalua tion of this federal target program for the Russian gov ernment and for the system of its measures to be included in the budget of the relevant year. The most important task of the federal target program should be a reduction in “poverty zones,” development of the most lagging Siberian territories by means of stimulat ing economic growth and providing sources of their selfdevelopment, as well as creating infrastructural conditions for the successful development of business (transport, logistics, innovation, and financial infra structure in Siberian regions). Projects aimed at sup porting the development of additional types of pro duction and alternative types of employment and self employment in singleindustry cities and small settle ments of Siberia and projects on the support of the indigenous peoples of the North should also be included in the specified FTP as program measures and subprograms. The federal target program “Imple mentation of the Strategy of Socioeconomic Develop ment of Siberia” should strongly differ from typical industrial federal target programs implemented in REGIONAL RESEARCH OF RUSSIA
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regions. First, it should not include any common investment projects on the development of certain types of production; an emphasis in federal financing and cofinancing should be placed in infrastructure, first of all, transport projects. Second, a management block should be worked out in details; —establishment of the Siberian Regional Devel opment Fund at the level of the Siberian Federal Dis trict as an analog of structural funds of regional policy of the European community. The assets of such a fund should be used for financing social, security, and infra structural projects and programs of Siberia’s develop ment strategy. The use of its assets should bear a strictly targeted character, be based on severe selection of problem regions, and provide cofinancing on the part of regional authorities. The Siberian fund of regional development should be formed of federal budget assets (including from assets of the Stabilization Fund), as well as include budgetary and nonbudgetary assets of Siberian federal subjects and contributions of large companies in relation to which it is necessary to apply stimulating mechanisms. For the registration of pro cedures for the use of the fund it is expedient to con clude interregional conventions between Siberian federal subjects; —preparation of the “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia for the Period up to 2030.” The development strategy of Siberia up to 2020 actu ally starts functioning in the format of midterm plan ning and forecasting. Meanwhile, the changing exter nal conditions, expanding the possibilities of the sci entific and technical progress for the development of Siberia’s resources and their integrated processing and the progress in transport and energy industries, require increasing the horizon of generation of strategic solu tions covering a longer period of time. PROVISION OF BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATIONS IN SIBERIA’S DEVELOPMENT The economy of Siberia in the midterm and, moreover, in the longterm prospect will not be able to develop without being supported by scientific– research and organizational–economic innovations. Besides common problems of spread of innovation, which are also characteristic of other regions of Rus sia, for Siberia, the essential relevancy of development according to the innovation way is specified by the fol lowing two most important factors: an unfavorable demographic situation (decrease of population growth) and sharp worsening of quality characteristics of mineral and natural resources involved in the pro cess of development. Only innovations can provide the development and use of the natural resource potential of Siberia with economic characteristics acceptable for both the soci ety and companies which use subsurface resources. Expensive resources, the mining of which is only stim 2013
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ulated by the tax allowances, will not bring any real return either for the Siberian or the national economy. The issue of developing zones and territories of implementation and application of innovations in Siberia, i.e., areas within which special economic management regimes aimed at the use of scientific, engineering, and organizational innovations exist, is of principal importance. Science parks, special imple mentation zones, scientific centers, and federal research universities should be referred to such zones. However, they should be first based on the real scien tific and education potential of the relevant territories (scientific and education personnel; scientific schools; innovation infrastructure; and strong traditions of the scientific, research, and educational activities) and, second, on the innovation specialization, i.e., “depen dence” of new centers of innovation activities from the producing and engineering specialization of the Sibe rian federal subjects and cities (coal and coal–chemi cal innovation complex in Kuzbass; an aerospace complex in Krasnoyarsk krai, an oil and gas chemical one in the Tomsk region, etc.). So far, an innovation specialization dependent on the specialization of the region has been clearly formed only in the science park of the Novosibirsk Academic Town. The formation of science parks, implementation zones, etc., only to please the governmental course towards innovative development without relevant conditions and assump tions only discredits this direction of development and draws away the necessary resources from actually breakthrough directions and zones of innovations in the Siberian macroregion. In this respect, the main vector of innovation processes in the economy of Sibe ria should be directed to a closer relation with the implementation of certain projects on the develop ment of mineral resources or the development of pre viously created unique scientific complexes of global importance (such as the Kol’tzovo Science Town, Krasnoyarsk–26, etc.). For Siberia, the most reasonable approach to the formation of a more close relation between science, innovations and activities for the development of pri mary mineral sources is the project approach. It means a continuous relation of the process of creation and promotion of innovative products with the implemen tation of economically efficient solutions for the development of mineral and natural resources. Such an approach, for example, in Canada and Norway, permitted to make a step forward in the creation of principally new scienceintensive technologies, “pulled” the economy, and gave a powerful impetus to development new related industries in northern areas. For Siberia, a very weak relation between develop ment projects of mineral resources and the develop ment of related industries (basic equipment is supplied from other regions and the main solutions come from outside) is still a significant problem, complicating such a direction of innovative development. The offered approach is even more vital, because the main
tax revenues from the development of mineral resources are paid to the federal budget. That is why localization in the territory of Siberia of the effects from the performance of projects in the mineral resources sector is both necessary and reasonable. The Institute of Economic and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, developed a “road map” of implementation of the offered approach. SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT OF THE PERFORMANCE OF THE TASKS OF SIBERIA’S DEVELOPMENT ACCELERATION The Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sci ences, being one of the most capable and efficiently functioning segments of Russian science, providing many worldclass researches, is undertaking concen trated efforts in this direction. The scientific develop ments of the institutes of the Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, are exactly focused on solving the socioeconomic development problems of Siberia and are aimed at the transfer of its economy to a new way of innovative development. Nevertheless, a signif icant part of these works has an initiative character: they are not sufficiently financed and are weakly rep resented in the total system of arrangement of the sci entific researches of the Russian Academy of Sciences. To significantly increase the efficiency and prestige of comprehensive scientific researches into the trends and prospects of Siberia’s development, it is required to increase their value in the system of priority research directions of the Russian Academy of Sci ences. That is why the formation of a new program of fundamental researches of the Presidium of the Rus sian Academy of Sciences “Fundamental Problems of Strengthening the Positions of the East of Russia in the National and World Economies: Institutional, Inte gration, and Resource Opportunities” is efficient. This program should be performed under the aegis of the Siberian Branch, as well as with the participation of the Ural and Far Eastern branches of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On the one hand, its implemen tation will permit to keep and strengthen the system of scientific researches of the Russian Academy of Sci ences on the issues or spatial development of Russia, interregional interactions, and the development pros pects of Siberia and the Far East and provide the con tinuation of the program of the Presidium of the Rus sian Academy of Sciences no. 28 “Fundamental Prob lems of Spatial Development: Interdisciplinary Synthesis,” and, on the other hand, it will make possi ble to retain the leadership of the Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, in this range of prob lems. A new program should have a strong interdisci plinary and integration character and concentrate the efforts of economists, sociologists, geographers, geol ogists, and representatives of natural sciences for solv
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ing actually global and fundamental problems. It will not compete with the available strategic developments (for example, with the “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia”) but will provide scientific search for breakthrough directions which will funda mentally change the part and place of Siberia and other territories of Russia’s East in the national econ omy and in the system of world economic relations in the economic, social, institutional, scientific, and engineering aspects. A similar program concerning the South of Russia (with an emphasis on the develop ment of the North Caucasus region) is to be approved by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is clear that the immensity and seriousness of the development problem of Siberia and the Far East and their total impact on the viability of the Russian state is not less than the impact of problems of the Russian South’s development, and it should be represented in the system of priority research directions of the Rus sian Academy of Sciences. CONDITIONS AND ECONOMIC MECHANISMS OF PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT IN THE TERRITORY OF SIBERIA The most clear and highpriority action of the state in relation to the support of Siberia’s development should be return of the places of registration of legal entities, formation of profit, and payment of taxes and dues to the places of actual production of goods. Rel evant proposals have been made many times, but they were categorically rejected by the Ministry of Finance, although their meaning is evident: it is the liquidation of the “false mirror” of the Russian financial and eco nomic system where the main dividends from the use of natural resources do not belong to the regions where they are directly mined but the places of registration of the head offices of resourcemining companies (in most cases, the city of Moscow). As a result, at present, according to official statistics, almost one tenth of the mining of all mineral resources in Russia is located within Moscow; Moscow is the largest exporter of oil and gas, etc. Such a “virtual” economy, when the wellbeing of the capital greatly depended on the success of oil and gas workers, as well as metal pro ducers, of Siberia, Ural, and the Far East existed for decades; it is specified by the complex intertwining of the economic, political, and other interests of elites. Under the current conditions, the rejection of this sit uation by all remaining territories of Russia, especially Siberia and the Far East, has achieved a critical level. The implementation of the economic and social priorities, specified in the last version of the “Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Siberia,” should require certain changes in their financial support and new institutions, forms, and mechanisms of consoli dation of financial resources for the benefit of Siberia’s development, as well as certain transformations of the REGIONAL RESEARCH OF RUSSIA
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banking and financial system of the macroregion. It is necessary to create two institutional levels of the finan cial system in Siberia which will contribute to the implementation of the main priorities and aims of Siberia’s “Strategy 2020”: —establish a large regional bank of innovations and development as the center of financial support of the economic activity of large interindustry corpora tions, vertically integrated companies, holdings, financial and industrial groups, small and medium companies, individual entrepreneurs, and individual persons in the region; —improve microfinancial credit institutions (post offices rendering banking services, municipal and rural credit institutions, and regional credit unions). FUNDAMENTAL MODERNIZATION OF THE MINERAL RESOURCES COMPLEX OF SIBERIA The mineral resources complex (MRC) is the basis of Siberia’s economy and one of the natural competi tive advantages of Russia. The balanced policy on the integration of the MRC into the process of solving economic and social problems of Russia and Siberia is urgent. The following can be referred to such prob lems: —creation of conditions for the development of other economic sectors (within the process of increas ing the MRC transparency and stabilization of the level of tax revenues to the budgets of different levels); —increasing the stability of fulfillment of social liabilities (for example, guarantees of pension pay ments); —developing of the process of modernization and restructuring of the country’s economy (it is possible to “promote” the demand for new technologies and new materials due to the formation of a modern scien tific and engineering policy: not only space projects but also the development of shelf and deep deposits). The mineral resources sector of Siberia provides and will provide in the future the development of other economic sectors: —through the budget (as MRC tax revenues make the largest parts of the federal budget income), i.e., through the financing of other economic sectors and the fulfillment of a wide range of socially significant projects); —by means of price subsidization of other sectors (for example, through gas prices) which creates pre conditions for the support or increase in the competi tiveness of sectorsconsumers, in this case, gas con sumers (gas–chemical and fertilizer production); —owing to multiplicative effects, forming the demand for products of adjacent sectors, first of all, hightech and scienceintensive sectors. The annual demand for investment only in the oilandgas sector of Russia is estimated at approximately 140 bln USD 2013
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Reserves, mln t
100 Russia
77
80
West Siberia
60 40
39
34
27 16
20
17
11
18 3
7
4
8
1.5
3
0 1971–1975
1976–1980
1981–1985
1986–1990
1991–1995
1996–2000
2001–2007
Average reserves of oil deposits discovered in Russian and West Siberia in 1971–2007.
(about 80 bln USD are invested in oil mining and 60 bln USD in the gas industry), and about 40% of this sum falls on equipment (60–65 bln USD). The implementation of the potential possibilities of the mineral resources sector’s impact on the economy of Siberia (and Russia’s economy as a whole) comes across some obstacles, first of all, of an institutional character. They include the following: —absence of a competitive environment and, as a consequence, extremely high and fastgrowing costs—both direct and indirect (this significantly reduces the profit potential of the sector for the state and society); —the contradiction of the state regulation system to the conditions and peculiarities of the modern development of the national MRC has entered the phase of a high level of maturity of the resource base (small and complex deposits for development); —a relatively (as compared to competitive coun tries) low level of demand for scienceintensive and modern technologies by the MRC and implementa tion of the “catchup” type of development (none of the Russian companies functioning in Siberia is a holder of worldclass technologies; none of the com panies spends assets for fundamental science in the area of its activity). The outrunning worsening of the state of the resource base is observed both in the oil and gas sector and in other MRC sectors of Russia and Siberia. The state of the raw materials base in the country is wors ening quantitatively and qualitatively. The share of hardtorecover reserves is increasing permanently: it varies from 30 to 65% in some oil companies. At that, newly prepared reserves are often concentrated in medium and small deposits and are largely hard to recover. The main reserve increments are fixed at the developed deposits, including due to revaluations of the oil recovery factors. In most petroleum provinces of Russia, no large deposit has been discovered within the last decades. It is because the prospecting works were performed only in the distributed subsurface resource fund and aimed
at the discovery of depositssatellites near earlier dis covered and developed large objects. As the extent of exploration works increases, the average size of the discovered deposits becomes less and less (see figure); that is why discoveries of new unique and large deposits are predicted only in regions with a low extent of exploration of resources: on the continental shelf, in Eastern Siberia, and at deep levels in the West Siberian petroleum province. The accelerated decrease in return on investments in the MRC of Siberia is associated with economically unreasonable outrunning cost growth. Within recent years, in spite of a significant increase in investments, the growth rates of oil extraction have decreased. The observed increase in investments in oil extraction is followed by considerable growth in the cost of per formed works and therefore does not practically lead to a significant increase in the scope of drilling and commissioning of new objects. In this respect, it is necessary to develop measures to provide economic incentives for the creation of modern national technologies and equipment. It requires a flexible combination of measures for the stimulation and enforcement of subsurface users, and the latter in turn requires changing the conditions of provision of the right to use mineral resources. Currently, the state of reserves is so that the avail able technologies either do not permit to start their development at all (for example, on a deepwater shelf) or do not make possible to develop new deposits with a sufficient level of profitability. Even if compa nies have considerable financial resources (for exam ple, in the accounts of OAO Surgutneftegaz, there is more than 28 bln USD), they do not know how to use them mainly due to the fact that the number of profit able projects is very small. Under these conditions, investments are not made in the real sector; these assets are used for financial investments (at that, in the case of private companies, this often happens abroad). Extraction of mineral resources grows only where tax allowances are provided. Also, recently, the com missioning of new objects has always been accompa
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nied by pressure from extracting companies and trade with the state concerning allowances and preferences. At that, state authorities in the absence of competition do not have any mechanisms of monitoring the cost level. The expected costs in projects represented by companies that are due to receive state support do not have any undoubtedly understandable grounds (begin ning from measuring the technical parameters of projects). A solution to this issue is seen in the formation of regulation procedures, taking into account the local conditions and peculiarities. For this purpose, it is necessary to decrease state regulation to the level of federal districts and, even better, to the level of federal subjects. It is necessary to bring the whole system of state management of the subsurface resource fund in com pliance with the requirements of time (the current sys tem was formed in 1992 and was aimed at receiving bonuses from granting rights to use subsurface resources but not at their efficient use). At present, the sites of subsurface resources are transferred to users mainly according to the results of auctions and under combined licenses for high single payments. The num ber of canceled auctions (mainly for subsurface resource sites with unclear prospects which constitute about 70%) has increased sharply. The main disadvan tages of such a situation are in the following: —in the legislation, the licensing processes are weakly regulated. In particular, the requirements for the content of licenses for the right to use subsurface resources, the term of issuing a license to the winner of a competition or auction, and the liabilities of resource users for the conservation and liquidation of mine workings are not specified depending on the types of resources used, and the procedure of establishing and changing the borders of resource sites given for use by depth and area are not regulated; —the contradictions in the applicable legislation create a possibility to adopt subjective decisions on issuing licenses for the use of resource sites; —the licenses issued in 1992–1994 and valid until now as a rule do not include significant conditions for the use of resources, excluding the most common con ditions, which causes weak control of the development of deposits. To liquidate these disadvantages, the following is required: —strengthen the control over the users of resources under license agreements, requirements of the Russian legislation, regulatory legal acts, and norms and rules in the area of security conduct of works connected with the use of resources; —provide a possibility to apply a “declarative” principle to perform geological exploration works; —transfer part of authorities on licensing geologi cal survey works at resource sites to federal subjects; REGIONAL RESEARCH OF RUSSIA
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—form an efficient system of state control of geo logical exploration and mining works, control of the performance of the terms of licenses and agreements for the right to use resource sites; —form medium and longterm indicative pro grams of geological exploration works and licensing of resources; —develop a transparent order for opening depos its, including guarantees of noncompetitive issuing of licenses for extraction of resources at objects opened at the expense of a user under a license for geological sur veys of resources; —develop an order of prolongation of rights to use resources with the purpose to search for hydrocarbon deposits to finish the exploration and appraisal works under complex mining–geological and natural–geo graphical conditions; —work out in detail grounds and mechanisms for terminations, suspensions, and limitations of rights to use resources, develop an order of adoption of such decisions, as well as an order of restoration of the right to use. Significant changes in the principles of arrange ment and performance of taxation in the branches of the mineral resources sector are required. At present, the development of most sectors of Siberia’s MRC is connected with the necessity to develop new areas. To stimulate geologic exploration, development, and extraction of resources at sites in new areas, where the performance of works is associated with high risks and costs for the users of resources, the following measures are required: —withdrawal of regular payments for the use of resources for the purpose to search for and evaluation of mineral deposits; —accelerated payment of costs for regional and exploration works; —improvement of the norms of the Russian Tax Code regulating for the purpose of profit taxation the matters of accounting the costs associated with the development of resources; —accounting of the nominal level of the extraction tax while defining the imposed profit tax base, but not the real (actually paid) mineral extraction tax (MET); —use of investment allowances for the profit tax during developing new provinces or objects; —for the purpose of creation of stimuli for the development of small deposits, introduction of reduc tion factors to the extraction tax during developing such objects; —development and legislative consolidation of the mechanisms permitting to create tax stimuli for the extraction of mineral resources from complex depos its. It is necessary to change over to the taxation of eco nomic results (net profit) appearing during the extrac tion of subsurface resources (first of all, oil and gas resources) in the form of an excess profits tax (EPT). Application of the EPT stimulates investments in the 2013
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development of new deposits as the tax is not levied until complete return on capital costs is achieved. An important task is to increase the transparency of the mineral resources sector, as the efficient develop ment of the MRC in Siberia and Russia can only be implemented in the case of high transparency of com panies for the state and society. For this purpose, either the formation or development of a competitive market is necessary with a significant number of large, medium, and small players—companies of the MRC with considerable participation of the state, including regional authorities, in the management of resources (the North American model)—or an emphasis on the significant share of the state in the structure of the cap ital of MRC companies and on the strict regulation (scheduling, monitoring, and control) of processes of subsurface resource development (the Norwegian model). In the authors’ opinion, the formation and devel opment of the Russian model of mineral resources complex management and regulation of its work should be aimed at an increase in the transparency of MRC companies and creation of a competitive envi ronment. Without reliable information regarding the objects of regulation, it is impossible to arrange an effi cient system of management of the resource develop ment processes, meeting the interests of society. Taking into account the actual state of affairs in the MRC, as well as its role in the modern economy of Russian and Siberia, the authors assume it to be rea sonable to concentrate attention on the following directions of institutional transformations (in fact, it refers to the creation of a Russian model of resource management): —formation and development of a competitive services sector, which will contribute to an increase in the transparency of MRC companies, as well as the “objectification” and reduction in their costs;
—creation, stimulation, and support (protection from takeovers and provision of preferences) of small and medium businesses in the geological exploration and extraction of mineral raw materials; —implementation of a new principle of innovative MRC development: Russian resources plus Russian and foreign capital plus new technologies; —implementation of new large projects by verti cally integrated companies based on transparent project financing in the framework of subsidiary or joint organizational structures; —restructuring of large companies with state par ticipation in order to except from their structure of assets and directions of activities not permitting them to implement their competitive advantages (based on obtaining the effect of economies of scale). It is crucially important that the offered measures are not related to the weakening of large vertically integrated companies. These companies should remain (in any case, in the foreseeable prospect) the base of the Russian mineral resources sector and strong players in foreign markets, representing corpo rative and state interests abroad. At that, the above mentioned will contribute to the strengthening of large vertically integrated companies through a reduction in their costs and an increase in competitiveness. Russia and Siberia need large and strong players in global markets. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper was supported by the Russian Founda tion for Basic Research (project no. 110200091) and the fundamental research program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Role of Space in the Modernization of Russia: Environmental and Socioeconomic Potential” (project no. 7.5). Translated by Yu. Karpenko
REGIONAL RESEARCH OF RUSSIA
Vol. 3
No. 4
2013
