Marine Board led a meeting in Ulan-Ude. Buryatia was very hospitable.
On the 4th of August, 2014, Buryatia government hosted a meeting of the Marine Board under the Government of the Russian Federation, under the charge of Dmitriy Rogozin – Deputy Prime Minister of Russian Government, Chairman of the Marine Board. Issues discussed referred to conditions and development prospects for inland waterways of the Siberia and the Far East, as well as import substitution.
Cargo and passenger waterway transportation is vital for the Siberia and the Far East for they ensure vital activities for surrounding regions and compose 20% of total Russian river cargo flow. North seasonal cargo delivery for the regions by 90% is provided by inland waterways. Given the strategic importance of the revival of the inland navigation, it was discussed at the high level – by governors, heads of federal government authorities, agencies and members of the Military Industrial Commission.
Chief of the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency, Alexandr Davydenko, reported that the authorities spend ten times less for maintenance of 1 km of waterways than for auto or railways. 1990-2004 underfunding caused serious deterioration in quality of waterways. The participants discussed the next steps for creating and reforming of the infrastructure, setting maintenance standards and gradual fleet update. The Chief of Buryatia Republic, Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, said those were the urgent problems not solely for the Republic, but for the Irkutsk Region and Zabaykalsky Krai. Development of navigation in Siberia and Baikal Lake is closely intertwined with development of industry, ship-building, tourism, fishery and regional ecological safety.
A special attention was drawn to measures of import substitution of components and technological transfer in the realm of current geopolitical situation, particularly – civil ship-building and creation of marine equipment for offshore resources development. The First Deputy Chairman of the Marine Board, Sergey Shishkarev, came out with an interesting offer to create “The Russian Steamship Company” as the largest national customer for small-capacity fleet: auxiliary, passenger, bunkering, “river-sea” vessels. The united customer could become the fleet operator as well, giving the built ships via the bare board charter and the time charter. This will allow tackling two problems at a time: fleet renewal and inland waterway cargo throughput increase, including the Siberia and the Far East region. “Given the Russian sectoral demand, the needed stock of order in the next 15 years will cost 5 trillions of rubles. Do we really want to give that money to somebody?! Of course we have to build them ourselves”? – Shishkarev drew this conclusion, outlining that we should operate not in terms of budgetary funds, but economic categories.
Moreover, the meeting participants divided their attention of the Baikal region industry. The decision was accepted to provide state support to Ulan-Ude aviation and instrument-engineering plant. “The import substitution plan – is not a mere copying of what was shipped to us by Ukraine and NATO, we’re talking about modernization”, – said Dmitriy Rogozin after visiting aviation plant in Ulan-Ude.
All together the import substitution plan includes about a thousand of enterprises all over the country, including two in Buryatiya Republic and Irkutsk aviation plant.
The meeting of the Marine Board was held in the framework of Baikal international business week, which attracted attention to region’s growing potential and helped to improve business ties for further sustainable long-term development.