Basic Factors Impeding Development of Russian Industrial Parks

Nowadays the benefit of industrial parks for regions in the territory of which they are located, the economy and the state, as a whole, is evident both for authorities and business. However, in reality the sector of industrial parks, which is, in fact, in its infancy, faces numerous difficulties on the way to its development.

Among the most relevant problems that concern the sector of industrial parks, specialists and participants name the issue of infrastructure support of the sites. At that, some experts prefer so called brownfield construction, i.e. based on exiting enterprises, since launch expenditure in this case is lower, however, there are some growth limiting factors and risks. Still, other experts believe that for efficient operation of an industrial park, meeting modern requirements, greenfield construction (right from the start) is more attractive from the point of view of its further development potential and rates, though it requires significant costs at the initial stage.

They also emphasize imperfections of the mechanism of attracting residents to industrial parks, a lack of parks for small and medium-size business (the number of entities of which exceeds 16 thousand), low involvement of small business entities in production cycle of large foreign companies because of low localization of production works, flaws in the legal framework, a lack of industry standards, etc.

Nevertheless, plans for development of industrial parks represent not only dreams of chiefs of enterprises, but also, since recently, a respective subprogram of the state program for manufacturing development. It is expected that thanks to public support measures, which include improvement of the regulatory framework, also in the sphere of design and construction of industrial parks, R&D, improvement of the mechanism of attracting investment and others, the number of operating parks will double and will amount to more than 70 in 2016.

Schedule 1. Number of operating industrial parks in Russia in 2013–2014 and forecast till 2016

Source: State Program of RF “Development of Manufacturing and Improvement of Its Competitiveness”, KPI

It is also expected that the volume of tax revenues to the consolidated budget from companies that conduct their activities in the territory of industrial parks, which exceeded 14.5 billion rubles in 2013, will increase almost two and a half times within three years.