The Ministry of Economy has prepared the concept of the investment standard mechanism for municipalities

This fall, the mechanism of the regional investment standard is planned to be extended to the municipal level, thus unifying the investment environment in the country. The set of tools is generally the same: the development of investment maps and profiles of municipalities, the selection of those responsible for interaction with business and the introduction of performance indicators for officials. The business community notes that many of the decisions needed to implement projects are made at the local level – however, the implementation of the new standard will be complicated due to serious differences between municipalities.

While the regions are completing the process of introducing a regional investment standard, the Ministry of Economy has prepared a concept for a similar mechanism for municipalities. On Friday, it was presented at a meeting of the headquarters for investments in the regions chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov.

Recall that the standard is aimed at creating a single environment for investment and shortening the investor’s path from the stage of project inception to the start of investment. For this, it is envisaged that the regions will adopt investment declarations, approve sets of investment rules and maps, as well as the formation of development agencies that will support projects in the “one-stop shop” mode (see Kommersant dated December 28, 2022). It is expected that investment standards will be implemented in all regions by the end of June.

The idea to extend the mechanism to the local level has been discussed since February. The Ministry of Economy told Kommersant that the implementation of the municipal standard is planned to begin this fall. In fact, we are talking about the completion of the state policy vertical to unify the investment environment – the municipal standard will operate on the same principles as the regional one. Among the ten requirements for compliance with the standard, the Ministry of Economy explains, is the formation of advisory bodies under the head of the local administration. They will deal with issues of facilitating the implementation of investment projects and ensure the presence of a commissioner for interaction with business.

It is also planned to develop investment profiles of the municipality (they should include, in particular, information on vacant land plots and industrial sites, available support measures, and competitive advantages of the territory). The profile must be updated at least once a year. It is also envisaged to introduce performance indicators for municipalities (number of launched and planned projects, volume of investments).

Nonna Kagramanyan, Vice-President of Delovaya Rossiya, notes that many investor-oriented services are provided at the municipal level, such as the allocation of land plots, the issuance of building permits, and connection to electrical networks. “Without improving work at the municipal level, the introduction of a regional investment standard cannot be considered complete,” she believes. The executive vice-president of the RSPP, Maria Glukhova, agrees with this. “Many things related to investment projects are implemented at the municipal level, so the introduction of such a standard is an important step,” she says. So far, the standard is advisory in nature and will be further developed, including taking into account the specifics of municipalities, since they are very different, including in terms of budgetary and staffing.

According to Dmitry Kurochkin, Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the dependence of the indicators of the regional standard on the results of work at the municipal level is obvious: most projects are implemented within the boundaries of municipalities, the involvement of which in the investment standard will allow businesses to more effectively resolve issues during the implementation of the project. However, he believes that it will be much more difficult to achieve a separate municipal standard – “primarily, because of the enormous differences between municipalities: for example, in the Moscow region these are quite powerful structures with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and a huge investment and industrial potential, and in the Far East it can to talk about a population of only a few thousand people.

Evgenia Kryuchkova