Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Russia's Announced Plans for the Far East

In early March, Fradkov announced plans to spend trillions of rubles (tens of billion of dollars) to develop the country's Far Eastern regions. Russian officials have also disclosed even more ambitious plans to raise the gross regional product twelve-fold by 2020.

The Kremlin's program to revive the country's Far East involves building refineries, metal plants as well as nuclear power facilities. Over the next six years, the government would allocate 358 billion rubles ($13.8 billion) to develop the Far Eastern regions, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told a cabinet meeting in Moscow on March 28 (Interfax, March 28).

But as Fradkov’s recent trip revealed, any Russian government announcement of capital-intensive plans to develop Far Eastern regions triggers countless funding requests from regional leaders.


Carlos, did you ever read _Siberian Curse_?

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