Activity

1999

1999 was not an easy year for the Governor of Samara Oblast. That was the year of the federal parliamentary elections and increased political activity. That was the year of the tragedy that struck the whole region: the building of the regional Department of Home Affairs was burnt down by fire and dozens of lives were lost in it. And that was the year of an expansion in Samara’s partnership relations with other Russian regions and foreign countries and the year of positive changes in Samara’s social and economic development that enabled the regional government to introduce a new social security scheme for paying higher pensions.

The year 1999 saw positive changes in the development of Samara’s real sector, which were supported by the external and internal economic situation favourable for increasing the production of import substituting goods:

a 13.3 % rise in Samara’s industrial output;
an 11.8% rise in Samara’s gross agricultural product;
a 6.8 %.rise in freight turnover;
a positive growth of 105.2% in gross regional product as compared with the negative 91.5 % growth in GRP in 1998;
a 5.6% increase in the proportion of foreign trade in GRP.

The regional government’s focussing its policies on the region’s social development enabled Samara Oblast to become the 5th ranking region in Russia in terms of the index of human potential development. This index is computed by the UNO on the basis of life expectancy, achieved level of education and actual GDP per capita. In 1999 Samara’s human potential development index equaled 0.85, while Russia’s index was 0.776. The socially oriented policy of Samara Oblast Administration made a fall in real income of households less sharp than it happened to be in Russia as a whole. At present the regional base salary of a government employee of category I is 38% higher than the rate set by federal law.

A targeted policy was introduced to support pensioners’ living standard. There were no pension arrears and there was set a new scheme of pension calculation on the basis of a pensioner’s individual coefficient value limit equaling 0.7. This led to an increase by 50% in the average regional pension, which equaled Rb575.0 by the end of 1999. The arrears of unemployment benefits were practically paid off. About 500 thousand people were paid allowances under various social security schemes, 28 women who are war invalids were granted Oka motor cars.

The region’s registered unemployment decreased by 30 % in 1999 and at the beginning of 2000 the regional unemployment rate equaled 11.3 % , which was 0.4 % lower than the average rate in Russia.

For the last 10 years the region’s neonatal mortality rate has been one of the lowest in Russia. In 1999 the region’s neo-mortality rate equaled 10 per mille against Russia’s 16.5 per mille.

Pursuant to the Russian Federal Law on Education 75% of the region’s educational institutions was given the status of an artificial person, the Russian average rate being 20%. The number of higher educational institutions increased from the total of 12 in 1991 to 15 governmental institutions and 16 non-governmental ones. In the academic year of 1998/99 the regional rate of students per 10 thousand of the population was 163 in trade training and 231 in higher professional training against Russia’s rate of 141 and 229 correspondingly.

The region’s 1999 industrial output per capita was Rb32.7 thousand against Russia’s index of Rb20.5 thousand. In 1999 Samara Oblast produced:

10% of Russian consumer goods, of which 85% was manufactured goods, while the corresponding Russian index was 40%;
2.8% of Russian crude oil;
12.3% of domestic petrol;
13.1% of domestic diesel fuel;
70% of Russian automotive output.

The number of enterprises with foreign participation from more than 50 countries equaled to 200.

An appreciable rise of 13.3 % in Samara’s industrial output, that was 5% higher than the corresponding Russian rate led to a full recovery after the recession of 1998. Production increased in the region’s key industries, including mechanical engineering, power engineering, chemicals and oil processing, aluminum, food products and building materials.

The region’s automotive sector is based around AvtoVAZ, Russia’s car giant, which produces 40% of the regional industrial production volume, employs 28% of the working population and accounts for 70% on the region’s industrial profit. A rise in the region’s automotive output in 1999 was achieved through the regional target program of cooperation between AvtoVAZ and other industries, which created the mechanism that enabled regional makers to supply up to 40% of AvtoVAZ’s total demand in complete units and parts.

The region’s gross agricultural output in 1999 was 11.8% higher that in 1998, and a rise in grain and vegetable output totaled up to 23.9%, while the average Russian increase was by 2.4% and 9% correspondingly. Samara Oblast is the 4th ranking area in the Volga region in grain and vegetable production volume letting before itself the Oblasts of Saratov and Volgograd and the Republic of Tatarstan, whose agricultural lands are vaster. Among the member-regions of the Bolshaya Volga Association Samara Oblast produces over 10% of grain, 25% of sunflower seed and 8% of potato and vegetables.

In the course of the last 5 years the number of small businesses has been constantly increasing and up to the beginning of 2000 it has reached 27 thousand, which is broken down as follows:

Trade and Catering – 48%,
Industry – 14%,
Construction – 7%.

The total of small business employees increased by 36% in 1999 and reached 195 thousand people, which accounts for 17% of the region’s employable population. The year 1999 also saw a 23% rise in the region’s total investment in housing construction against the average Russian increase of 4%. Public investment in housing construction increased by 42% in comparison with the year 1998.

During the last two years Samara Oblast has achieved close to balanced budgets, which are basically oriented to social development. Non-cash settlements proportion in the total regional budget operations decreased from 42.4 % in 1998 to 22.7 % in 1999. Actual receipts gained 114.3% of the budgeted revenues and actual expenses totaled up to 109.9% of the budgeted expenditures. As compared to the 1998 budget, there was an increase by 2.1% in revenues and by 2.2% in expenditures in the fulfilment of the 1999 budget.

An increase in budget revenues was facilitated by the sales tax that had been charged within Samara’s territory since 1 January 1999 and set off a number of cancelled taxes and excises. The 1999 sales tax revenues amounted to Rb827.3 million, which was 127 times higher than the corresponding figure in 1998.

From 1 January 1999 a unified mechanism of inter-budget relations has been operated within the region. Each of the municipalities is allocated a proportion of transfers rated per capita, which enables the horizontal levelling of municipal revenues. Still there is also a special fund, from which subsidies can be allocated to a municipality, if its debt is duly set off, for maintaining public utilities.

As on 1 January 2000 wage arrears amounts to Rb241.3 million, which is 3 times less than it was at the beginning of 1999. There has been a reduction by 1.8 times in Russia’s wage arrears, and Samara’s wage arrears per worker is 4 times less than in the whole Russia.

The regional administration’s policies are focussed on establishing legal conditions for free economic development and encouraging foreign investment. And this effort has borne its fruit: the regional investment rating is rising and foreign companies are eager to make investments in the region’s economy.

Maintaining partnership ties with domestic and foreign business is one of the prior concerns of the regional administration. In 1999 Governor Titov went on business tours over the regions of the Volga, Siberia, Far East and central Russia. He also made visits to Italy, Sweden, Japan, the USA, Germany, the UK, to which he was invited by the UK’s Home Office, and Salzburg, Austria, where he participated in the World Economic Forum and delivered a report on the economic prospects of Samara Oblast.

Many distinguished guests were welcomed by Samara. Among them there were Swedish Prime-Minister Joran Persson, Patriarch of Moscow and Russia Alexei II and other Russian or foreign visitors.

In June 1999 Samara Oblast Governor visited the Oblast of Vyatka. An agreement was signed between the two administrations on economic and social cooperation and cultural exchange. Similar agreements have been concluded with Penza, Magadan, Yakutia, Chuvashia and Mariy-El.

Governor Titov spares no effort in meeting the people of the region. In 1999 he made several tours about the region’s municipalities, such as Bezenchuk, Kinel-Cherkassy, Chapayevsk, Togliatti and others. Subsidies provided by the region to the municipality of Kinel-Cherkassy, of which the population is 20 thousand people, enabled the construction of a 22-flat house for teachers and doctors, who are government employees. On 8 May 1999 a new multi-flat house for war veterans was commissioned in Chapayevsk. In 1999 the world’s first night of Slonimsky’s opera Ivan the Terrible’s Visions was conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich on the stage of Samara’s opera house. This production had been co-sponsored by the regional administration.

Governor Titov was the initiator of his meeting with the heads of the region’s religious confessions. This resulted in signing an agreement on peace in the Russian federation, which states the eagerness to unite effort of all religious confessions and peace-loving forces in opposing terror and religious division.

In 1999 the successful results achieved by Samara Oblast were marked with many awards presented to the Governor. Among the awards there are the title of Honoured Economist of Russia, the prize of the Journalists’ Union, the prize of the Stroitelnaya Gazeta and the Chamber of Commerce, the title of the Doer of the Year, diploma and medal of the International Academy of Information.

For his great personal contribution in the resurrection and development of Spirituality and Faith Governor Titov received the Order of Holy Prince Vladimir from the hands of Patriarch Alexei II.

Activity

1999