All numbers are already taken – Newspaper Kommersant No. 164 (7365) dated 09/07/2022
[ad_1]
The Ministry of Finance proposes to suspend the selection of new investment projects for the construction of tourism infrastructure for the provision of soft loans at a rate of 3-5%. This, according to the ministry, is necessary in order to finalize the criteria for selecting borrowers previously approved by the government, taking into account the current situation in the economy. However, market participants claim that the issuance of loans for already approved projects has slowed down.
At the disposal of Kommersant was a letter sent to the government apparatus, where the Ministry of Finance proposed to suspend the selection of new investment projects for the development of tourism infrastructure, applying for preferential loans at a rate of 3-5%. According to the ministry, this is necessary to develop additional criteria for selecting borrowers and synchronizing all mechanisms for creating a hotel fund, including with the state corporation Tourism.RF. Otherwise, they do not rule out in the Ministry of Finance, there may be a risk to the budget.
The ministry also does not rule out that the creation of the number of rooms provided for by the national tourism project (68 thousand by 2030) will require additional funds from the budget, including due to the changed key rate of the Central Bank. The government apparatus, the Ministry of Finance and Rostourism did not promptly answer Kommersant’s questions.
The government approved the rules for granting preferential loans at a rate of 3-5% for the tourism industry in February 2021. The budget of the Russian Federation subsidizes the difference between commercial and actual rates to banks. Loans are allocated mainly to year-round hotels with an area of at least 5 thousand square meters. m. Now, according to the Ministry of Finance, 38 projects with a total fund of 14 thousand rooms have already been selected. In May of this year, a new round of applications was announced, but the results were not reported.
Opora Rossii Vice President Alexei Kozhevnikov points out that the issuance of loans for already approved projects has slowed down. Back in June, the banks announced to the Federal Tourism Agency the projects that passed the credit committees, but they were not submitted for consideration by the government commission, he notes. This, according to him, complicates the work of investors, since they actually cannot start implementing projects. General Director of Vasta Discovery (one of the recipients of preferential loans) Sergey Bachin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum on September 6, confirmed that businesses may have difficulties with the implementation of their projects due to the possibility of revising previously approved criteria. “You can’t go on a journey and change working conditions after two years,” he said. Mantera Group, which also participates in the program, did not promptly respond to Kommersant.
Prior to this, investor dissatisfaction caused another initiative of the Ministry of Finance, which proposed to move away from the preferential rate corridor of 3-5%, fixing it at the level of 5%. But on September 6, Vladimir Putin spoke in favor of maintaining the rate on existing loans at the State Council for Tourism Development. “The law has no retroactive effect,” he said.
Now the ministry has more serious questions about the current program. The Ministry of Finance is unclear about the need to expand the hotel stock in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Krasnodar Territory, where there are already many accommodation facilities. For all selected objects, according to the ministry, the level of classification should be determined, the maximum loan amount and the cost of creating one number should be established within the framework of the main decree.
Sergey Romashkin, general director of the Dolphin tour operator, states that even in regions with a large fund, there is a shortage of certain categories of objects. So, in Sochi there is traditionally a shortage of five-star hotels, and in Moscow – objects of the three-star category. Mr. Romashkin believes that the establishment of additional criteria for individual regions in the selection of projects may be appropriate.
[ad_2]
Source link