Prime Minister Vladimir Putin unveiled ambitious development goals for the volatile North Caucasus on Tuesday, promising 400,000 new jobs, an oil center in Chechnya and ski resorts stretching from the Black to the Caspian seas.
But he said little about how the government would fight against the pervasive corruption and nepotism that choke business development and undermine stability in the region.
Putin, speaking at a conference of his United Russia party in the Stavropol region city of Kislovodsk, said the government has invested $27 billion into developing the North Caucasus in the past decade and 400,000 jobs should be created in the region over the next 10 years.
"Chronic unemployment is perhaps the most acute social and psychological disaster in the North Caucasus," Putin said, adding that every fifth resident of the region cannot find a job.
After several years of relative calm following fierce fighting with Chechen separatists, the North Caucasus jumped high on the Kremlin's agenda after a series of terrorist bombings last year.
Alexander Khloponin, appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev to head the newly created North Caucasus Federal District earlier this year, submitted a far-reaching, 15-year development program for the region to Putin's Cabinet last month. ?
United Russia has drafted its own 10-year development program that will be discussed on the second day of the conference Wednesday.
Most of Putin's promises on Tuesday correlated with Khloponin's proposals, which were leaked to the media last week.
The prime minister said a network of ski resorts — a pet project of Khloponin — will be built "from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea."
"These resorts will be able to accommodate up to 100,000 tourists at a time and will create about 160,000 jobs in the region," Putin said.
Putin called the project a "living and absolutely realistic business idea" that will attract private investors at home and abroad.
So far, private foreign investors have been wary about getting seriously involved in the North Caucasus, where law enforcement officials and Islamist militants kill one another almost every day in a low-intensity guerilla war.
Putin said $65 million will be allocated to the ski resorts project this year.
A branch office of the government-controlled Vneshekonombank, tasked with the selection and sponsorship of regional development projects, will be set up in the North Caucasus, Putin said. This idea was also spelled out in Khloponin's draft proposal.
A new regional branch of the Economic Development Ministry will be set up in the North Caucasus to support Khloponin's office in coordinating the activities of all 113 federal agencies working there, Putin said.
An oil refinery opened this year by state-owned Rosneft in Chechnya will make the republic a new center of the Russian oil industry, the prime minister said. The refinery is expected to start operation in 2014, and the government plans to invest $550 million in it, he said.
The government will also give state guarantees for up to 70 percent of loans secured for development projects in the North Caucasus, costing the federal budget $200 million, Putin said.
"Such serious backing, I hope, will allow for a decrease in risk and, thus, the cost of loans," Putin said.
He said the North Caucasus should become part of an intercontinental transportation corridor connecting Europe with the states of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
For that to happen, a seaport in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, is to become a key naval transportation hub in Russia, and a highway is to be built between the capital of the Karachayevo-Cherkessia republic, Cherkessk, and the capital of Georgia's separatist region of Abkhazia, Sukhumi.
While setting ambitious goals, Putin downplayed security threats coming from the region, saying the militants are "degenerating" into criminal gangs "whose time is ticking away."
Putin added that 100 militants have been killed in the North Caucasus since the start of the year.
Terrorist activity, however, has been growing from militant groups based in the region in recent months, with the deployment of suicide bombers against government and civilian targets, including in Moscow, where two bombers killed 40 people in the metro in March.
Putin also demonstrated his trademark mistrust of civil society Tuesday, declaring once again that human rights groups — which are often critical of his policies in the North Caucasus — were being funded with foreign money.
"We need a constant and substantial dialogue with public human rights organizations," he said. "Of course, there are many people there who are being sponsored from abroad."
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