The government and big business have discussed a plan to amend the law on the SZPK (agreements on the protection and encouragement of investments), which should attract investments for 14 trillion rubles. The program consists of eight points, which became known on Thursday, December 16, following a meeting of First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation reported.
The regime offering protection of investments in the implementation of investment projects was launched in a pilot project in 2020. However, since April this year, against the background of the preparation of the regulatory framework, new agreements have not been concluded.
The meeting did not talk about revising previous agreements and already approved projects. The adoption of the new rules is planned for the spring session of the State Duma. According to Belousov, the government will work out the parameters of the updated regime within four months. According to one of the sources, a working group is being created specifically for this, which will include representatives of business, specialized departments, the Federal Tax Service, heads of regions, as well as representatives of two specialized committees of the State Duma.
Group meetings will be held every two weeks. It is planned to transfer the function of the authorized organization to support SZPK to VEB, at least for now, the First Deputy Prime Minister noted. The authorities do not abandon the principle of plurality in the analysis of projects, this will be worked out, he said. The FTS may become the operator of the GIS “Capital Investments” for SZPK.
The meeting participants indicated that eight points have been announced that should become the basis for the transformation of the NWPC. It is proposed to establish the rights of the regions in the coordination and implementation of investment projects in the field; under the guise of SZPK, old projects that were previously implemented without benefits should not be restarted; the authorized federal executive body should be responsible for verifying and fixing the requirements for the project for compliance with the legislation and amendments to the law on SZPK. In addition, it is necessary to prescribe the specifics of the simultaneous use of SZPK and other preferential regimes.
Also in the current legislation there is no provision on the possibility of concluding an amicable agreement providing for the provision of state support regarding the concluded SZPK. In addition to the amicable agreement, we can talk about the introduction of a mechanism for pre-trial dispute resolution.
Belousov’s position is to provide conditions for the implementation of agreements in the event of economic force majeure.
The meeting also spoke about the need for a closed and fixed list of conditions for stabilization clauses and compensations. According to Belousov, such norms are still in effect, but an analysis of the agreements shows that they are vaguely spelled out in them.
It was pointed out that the announcement of carbon neutral targets by a number of the world’s leading economies raises the question of introducing additional incentives and options for companies to adopt best available technologies. The First Deputy Prime Minister added that agreements on the announced projects will be drawn up taking into account their previous terms.
The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and Big Business conceptually supported the plans to transform the regime.
In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to consider the possibility of applying a reduced banking coefficient to such projects within the priority development areas (PDA), as well as agreements on the protection and encouragement of investments (SZPK). The government and the Bank of Russia should prepare proposals for easing standards.