Konstantin TITOV Priorities Economy restructuring

Priorities

Economy restructuring

Conversion was the main problem we had to face. Till 1992 nearly 1/3 of all workers and engineeres had worked in war industry. At present war industry orders have been cut more than 10 times. Consequently, companies and people have been out of work. This problem turned out to be more complicated than it had been initially assumed. It can not be solved within a separate region. A governmental programme is needed based on clear war doctrine of the country. Federal authorities hadn`t worked out such a programme for 8 years of reforms.

Nevertheless, to solve this programme we were the first Russian region to set up the conversion fund and to work out the regional programme of war industry conversion. There are a lot of cases when one rouble provides reimbursement of 10,20,30,40 and even 50 roubles. More than a hundred projects have been suggested and carefully studied and only 40 have been financed. It should be emphasized that they have saved more than 4000 working places.

Regional investment programmes amounted to 0,6 billion roubles in aggregate for the last 3 years. And in 2000 this sum amounts to 1,1 billion roubles which implies creation of more working places, stable wages and welfare of Samara`s families.

We have managed to solve a lot of problems caused by conversion, the employment of the jobless work force in the first place. In the majority of towns where war industry is concentrated, we were able to control mass unemployment.

At present the level of unemployment in Samara Oblast amounts to 2,7% of the able-bodied population which is considerably lower than in other regions with highly developed war industry. At the same time this problem is urgent in many towns and urban areas as there are no other industries apart from the war industry. Chapaevsk can be singled out in this respect. A special support programme has been worked out and approved of. We are targetted at implementing this programme, which turned out to be rather efficient. For the first time during 10 years decline in production was not fixed, and inscrease in production amounted to 10%.

The main tendency of structural economy changes in Samara Oblast is to set up small enterprises especially in trade and services sector. This sector of economy, which did not exist some 10 years ago, now amounts to 10% of all tax proceeds.

More than 198,000 people work in 27 small enterprises. But it is just the beginning. The following tendencies can be considered of primary priorities:

• the guarantee funds and credit unions will be set up;
• the small enterprises will be given access to idle capacities and unused areas of big plants:
• small enterprises, creating additional working places will be supported financially and given assistance with organization.