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Samara Region to become a major hub of the Belt and Road Initiative

Expert opinion
29 August 2019
«Самарская область станет крупнейшим хабом проекта «Один пояс — один путь»
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Release date
08/29/2019
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The EEF is a showcase for Russian regions primarily aimed at Asia-Pacific countries. What are Samara Region key business lines?

Samara Region in one of Russia’s major industrial regions. Virtually every industrial branch is represented here, with the key clusters being car manufacturing, aerospace, petrochemicals, mechanical engineering, and electrical equipment.

Our region is recognized as a piloted cosmonautics hub, and Samara is said to be a city with four spaceports. It was on one of our carrier rockets that Yuri Gagarin took humanity into the space age.

The car manufacturing cluster is key to our region: Tolyatti-based AvtoVAZ has over 20 percent of the national passenger vehicle market, and over 40 percent of all Russian- made car parts are manufactured in our Region.

Our region has strong potential in petrochemicals. Samara Region ranks second in Russia in petroleum processing. We produce 20 percent of the world’s ammonia.

We have a highly developed healthcare infrastructure. We’re seeing successful growth in an innovative geographical cluster where projects in medical IT and biotechnology are developed and implemented.

What makes Samara Region worth investing in for an Asian investor?

First and foremost, our enormous potential in manufacturing and science, as well as our advantageous location in terms of transport and logistics. This means that developing a partnership with Samara Region makes it much easier to take your business in Russia to a whole new level.

We are on the intersection of leading transport routes. Our region has a major railway hub, a river port with access to the Caspian and on to Asian countries, the Kurumoch International Airport, and federal highways.

In implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, we are planning on becoming one of the largest transport and logistics hubs, consolidating and distributing cargoes of regionally manufactured projects to regions in China via a direct railway route.

The New Silk Road will be one of the primary drivers; this is a transport corridor from Europe to Western China, which Samara Region is due to join with a new bridge across the Volga.

Samara Region is among the leading Russian regions in the dynamic of investment climate improvement. Assessments by key rating agencies reflect this; thus at the end of July, Moody’s changed Samara Oblast’s credit outlook from «stable» to «positive», confirming our Ba2 credit rating.

Our investment infrastructure is highly developed, with a wide range of preferential tax regimes in place. The region has an industrial production-type special economic zone in Tolyatti, the Zhiguli Valley Hi-Tech Park, state-run and private industrial parks which offer investors turn-key ready infrastructure. Advanced Special Economic Zones are developing in Tolyatti (the most successful of such zones in Russia) and Chapayevsk.

What can Samara Region offer investors?

We invite our foreign partners to implement investment projects in both the region’s areas of traditional specialization and of innovative development, such as IT, smart cities, Aeronet [distributed drone systems], or satellite technology in agriculture. We offer investors the entire spectrum of regional and federal support tools, as well as comprehensive administrative aid and support at every stage of a project’s implementation.

Welcome to Samara Region!

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