Perm Krai Increases Spending on Belkomur Infrastructure Project

17.04.2009 — News

THE PERM KRAI.

The Perm Krai will increase its share in the registered capital of the Severozapad-Prikamye Inter-regional Investment Company which manages the White Sea - Komi - Urals integrated project. RusBusinessNews was informed by the regional Government that 8.7 million roubles will be committed in the 2009 budget which will increase the Krai's investment to 68.9 million roubles.

The Severozapad-Prikamye IIC was founded in June 2007. The founders of the company are the administrations of the Komi Republic, the Perm Krai, and the Arkhangelsk Oblast, as well as enterprises and companies based in these regions. According to the memorandum the registered capital of the corporation must amount to 150 million roubles. Today, however, it amounts to a little more than 120 million. The Komi Republic and the Arkhangelsk Oblast must pay in the additional funds following the Perm Oblast.

The Belkomur project consists of the two blocks. The transport block contemplates the construction of a route-shortening railway Arkhangelsk - Syktyvkar - Solikamsk. It will reduce by 800 kilometres the cargo rail travel distance from Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the Central Asia to White sea ports and further to Northern Europe. The total length of the railway will be 1,252 kilometres, 712 kilometres of which still have to be constructed. In the future it will become a part of the Barents-Link transcontinental mainline railroad running uninterrupted from Norway to India. The construction of the railroad may start in 2013.

The industrial block of the project is aimed at the establishment and development of enterprises engaged in oil, gas, and timber processing and those producing titanium and titanium-based products, cement and construction materials, and potassium fertilizers.

The implementation of the Belkomur project is based on the principles of public-private partnership. Private investors intend to invest more than 480 billion roubles in the project. In January 2009 the Russian Ministry of Transport has approved the application to the RF Investment Fund for the railway construction funding. The sum total of finances required is 118 billion roubles.