High-tech parks fit into industrial policy – Economics – Kommersant

A draft law, approved at a government meeting today, has been submitted to the State Duma to fill a gap in the regulation of technology parks in the high-tech sector — they are being immersed in the law on industrial policy. This is necessary so that such “sites” – both existing and future ones – can qualify for support measures provided for industrial parks and industrial technoparks, including subsidies for the creation of infrastructure.

At today’s meeting, the government approved and on the same day submitted to the State Duma amendments to the law on industrial policy – in terms of regulating the legal status of technology parks in the field of high technologies. Now there are 12 such parks in Russia, they were created as part of a separate program under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Development, which was curtailed in 2014.

As a result, a situation has developed in which high-tech technoparks are not subject to the law on industrial policy, and therefore are very limited (compared to industrial or industrial parks) in receiving state support, for example, reimbursement of expenses to regions or private investors for the creation of park infrastructure.

Earlier, the government had already begun work on unifying the support of “parks” – the Ministry of Industry and Trade was appointed as a single administrator, and the high-tech parks themselves were “manually” included in the list of recipients of compensation for infrastructure costs by a government decree (see “Kommersant” dated November 22).

However, as follows from the explanatory note, legislative changes are still required to “implement the possibility of applying measures to technoparks in the field of high technologies to stimulate activities in the field of industry”.

As Andrei Shpilenko, director of the Association of Clusters, Technoparks and SEZs of Russia, explains, this is due to the fact that “the law on industrial policy expressly states that industrial and industrial parks that meet the requirements established by the government can apply for incentive measures – these provisions, it turns out, do not affect technology parks in the field of high technologies.

The draft proposes to establish similar standards for high-tech technology parks – they are understood as platforms for business to carry out “innovative activities and activities in the field of information technology in order to ensure the production of industrial products and bring new technology products and services to the market.” The requirements for them will be approved by the government – the Ministry of Industry and Trade will check the “sites” for their compliance with the criteria. As Andrei Shpilenko notes, existing high-tech industrial parks will be able to confirm compliance with these requirements or receive, as is currently being done, accreditation as industrial parks in order to receive support measures. It is expected that this will also form the legal basis for the creation and development of new technology parks in the field of high technologies.

In addition, amendments are being made to the law “On the principles of organizing public authorities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation”, giving regional bodies in the field of industrial policy the authority to establish additional requirements for high-tech technoparks and apply support measures to them already at their level.

Evgenia Kryuchkova