The President went towards the forest – Newspaper Kommersant No. 26 (7471) dated 02/13/2023
[ad_1]
The President of the Russian Federation agreed to increase the amount of compensation for export transportation costs for large enterprises of the timber industry complex and proposed to work out subsidies for exporting products through the ports of the North-West. Also, the industry is likely to receive a deferment on payments for the lease of forest plots and hopes for an increase in the use of pellets in heating.
Vladimir Putin, following a meeting on measures to support the timber industry on February 10, instructed the government to finalize the mechanism for subsidizing the transportation of industrial products. Now the maximum amount of compensation is 500 million rubles. to the enterprise. But, as Vladimir Butorin, the head of the large timber processor ULC, explained during the meeting, for large enterprises this amount of compensation does not exceed 7% of the logistics costs. He asked to distribute transport subsidies for all forestry enterprises on a quarterly basis in equal proportions. Mr. Butorin said that, according to the calculations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 10 billion rubles are needed for subsidies in 2023. Prior to this, the timber merchants have repeatedly asked the government to increase the amount of the subsidy to at least 50% of transport costs.
The President also instructed to introduce subsidies for sea transportation of woodworking products from the ports of the North-West. Historically, the industry exported mainly to Europe, and now it is trying to export products to Asia, primarily to China, but is experiencing problems with the transportation of all declared volumes by rail.
As Oleg Belozerov, head of Russian Railways, said at the meeting, the loading of timber cargo in 2022 decreased by 22%, or by 11 million tons, while the average monthly volume of requests for transportation was ten times higher than production volumes. “What can be seen is that enterprises that do not have their own production capacities are being declared,” he said. “A proposal has been made that manufacturers should be the priority in access to transportation by rail. These proposals have been worked out since December with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, with the government, and we propose to fix this in the rules for access to railways.”
Alexey Shilo, Deputy General Director of Russian Railways, recently specified that 68% of forest products exports seek to reach China through border crossings. “With Chinese Railways, the volumes for each item are strictly defined: for example, I can deliver two trains with timber a day,” he explained. “If I bring three trains or four, our Chinese partner will still accept only two, because on its side, all the capacities are sharpened precisely for this volume. And no other cargo is knocked out at the border crossing.”
The president also agreed with the request of market participants to defer the payment of rent for those forest areas where timber is not harvested now. Although at the end of last year the government was already going to allow timber merchants to pay only for the actually harvested wood, this decision has not yet been formalized. To support domestic demand, Vladimir Putin instructed to use low-rise factory-made wooden houses in the program for resettling emergency housing as early as this year, as well as to allocate an additional at least 15 billion rubles. infrastructure budget loans in the next two years for the conversion of municipal boilers to pellets, if it is economically feasible.
According to Alexander Dyatlov, Deputy Chairman of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly of Deputies, it is fundamentally important that during the meeting the president proposed specific measures to support the industry, which its participants have been asking for for a year now. “Issues on pellets were not resolved at all, we have been raising this issue for more than a year, but it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Economy, and not a single department wanted to deal with this, and, of course, only the president could give them such an order,”— he noted. At the same time, according to the official, there are still unresolved issues, such as the problem of building forest roads.
[ad_2]
Source link
