NARYAN MAR, Nenets Autonomous Area, August 6 (Itar-Tass) — In order to develop the potential of Russia’s Arctic new measures should be taken in the tax and investment policy, secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said.
On April 4, a draft law on amending legislation, which regulates the service of the Northern Sea Route and creates a single system for managing its lines, was submitted to the government. “We rivet special attention to coordinating and working through key issues, including legislative support for the infrastructural development in the Artic region, measures to make distant areas of the Arctic easy of access and develop rescue systems and methods,” he said at the Security Council’s visiting session on Saturday.
In his words, “the regions, which have access to the Arctic should start work to prepare proposals on forming efficient transport and logistics systems that will ensure sustainable functioning of extractive enterprises in the Arctic.” “It is necessary to work out new measures to improve the tax and investment policy due to the Arctic weather conditions,” Patrushev added.
The offices of the Russian presidential plenipotentiary representatives to federal districts “should join efforts to coordinate measures in order to increase social responsibility of economic entities dealing with resource development in the Arctic”.
Patrushev stressed that a meeting, involving presidential plenipotentiary representative to the Northwestern Federal District Ilya Klebanov, and the leadership of ministries and agencies, “is designed to use the existing reserve possibilities of the federal centre and Russian regions located in the Arctic area in order to realise the Russian Federation’s state policy in the Arctic”.
The meeting precedes a six-day international conference on the development of the Arctic’s potential. The conference is due to take place aboard the Yamal nuclear icebreaker, which will pull anchor to the port of Tiksi within hours.
Patrushev also said the development of the Arctic region should be accompanied by strengthening military and border security in the region and creating systems to prevent emergency situations.
In 2008 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the Artic region was becoming a key strategic resource base in the 21st century. Commenting on Medvedev’s wording, Patrushev said, “This requires a package approach, an integral policy, thoroughly verified and thought-out decisions on the development of Russia’s Arctic zone, primarily the transport and social infrastructure.”
He recalled that Russia had approved the Fundamentals of the State Policy in the Arctic Region till 2020 and determined measures to form a development strategy on the Russian Arctic region and a state programme. “Today the government is implementing measures to realise the Fundamentals of the State Policy. The government is ending efforts aimed at working out a development strategy on the Russian Arctic region in order to ensure national security,” the secretary of the Security Council said.
At the same time, he said, “In all documents the development of the transport infrastructure is a priority task in the Russian Arctic region in order to ensure national security.” “We should link efforts aimed at improving the transport infrastructure to resolving problems related to strengthening military and border security and cope with the consequences of possible emergency situations in the entire Arctic region,” Patrushev stressed.
In his words, the development of “dual-purpose facilities at the Northern Sea Route for the benefit of temporary stationing of combat ships and vessels of the Navy, the Border Guard Service will reinforce our military and border security”.
The imperfection of the transport infrastructure in the Arctic region hampers the development of the region, Patrushev said.
“This infrastructure does not meet necessary requirements for protecting Russia’s national interests,” he said.
“The insufficiency of present-day systems for transporting the Arctic shelf’s mineral resources reduces the investment attractiveness of the country’s main resource base,” he stressed. In his words, the terminals, Varandei and Prirazlomnoye in the Pechora Sea, as well as the merchant navy for taking crude hydrocarbons out of these terminals, are likely an exclusion of the rather difficult situation in this area.
In addition, Patrushev said, “The imperfection of the dual-purpose transport infrastructure prevents from solving problems of units of Russia’s Armed Forces in the Arctic region and has a negative impact on ensuring military security in the region.”
“The existing navigation and hydrometeorological systems allow us to develop the economy of the western part of the Arctic region. But in the eastern part where the majority of our potential resources is located these problems are solved insufficiently,” he added.
“As a whole the exploration of the Arctic region needs strategic planning of our actions to develop Arctic territories within the realisation of the Russian Federation’s state policy in the Arctic region,” the secretary of the Security Council pointed out.