The Mayor of Innopolis hinted at the insufficiency of federal funding of the science city
The rumours about the resignation of the Mayor of Innopolis, the involvement of Roman Shaikhutdinov in the search of the residents for the science city and a Chinese ‘deceiver’
This week, the new Russian city Innopolis celebrates its first year since its 'official' foundation. Even two conferences are timed to that date – Information Technology of Industrial Russia-2016 (CIPR-2016) and the Russian Internet Forum (RIF). There was held a press conference on the threshold of these events, at which the Mayor of Innopolis Egor Ivanov quite sincerely answered the questions related the future development of the city. The correspondent of Realnoe Vremya talked to the head of the young city.
The strategic aim of Innopolis – 155 thousand people by 2030
On 8-9 June, Innopolis hosts the forum 'RIF. Innopolis', the event is timed to the birthday of the city. On the threshold of the event, for the first time after the appearance of active rumors about the resignation, the Mayor Egor Ivanov appeared before the audience. Despite the fact that the rumors about the resignation have been previously denied, a certain nervousness of the Mayor was still felt.
In particular, Ivanov announced frankly dismal figures of the population growth of the city. According to the plan, Innopolis by 2030 should have been inhabited by 150 thousand people. Today the population is around 2 thousand people. The failure of the plan can lead to the collapse of the project.
'In general, the strategic aim of Innopolis – 155 thousand people. Where does it from – it is from quite detailed mathematic calculations done by the consulting company, that was planned by Innopolis. That's why the city with population lower than that figure – it has a possibility not to achieve the enough level of self-organization, and sooner or later it will be a satellite of a larger city,' told Ivanov at the press conference.
Now there are only places for 5 thousand citizens yet
To achieve this goal, each year Innopolis should grow by 10 thousand new citizens, however, the implementation of such plan still looks like fantastic. Thus, according to the Mayor, the infrastructure is not ready yet even for 5 thousand inhabitants. And to raise the number of citizens to this bar is a key task of the team of Ivanov. The explosive growth (500% per year, from 2 to 12 thousand) is out of the question yet.
'In order to populate Innopolis by 10 thousand inhabitants each year — at least, we need infrastructure. So, in order there was infrastructure, we need federal money because it is clear that neither the regional budget nor private investors will not invest such amounts in the development of the city. Now there is the infrastructure for 5 thousand people, we don't know what will happen tomorrow, we do not know what will happen with the political situation, we do not know what will happen with the dollar price, and the cost of a barrel of oil. Now we have a certainty: the federal center has allocated money, the first phase of the project is being finished on them — 5 thousand.'
Thus, it seems that the development of Innopolis has run into a crisis and into the problems of federal budget. Judging by the pessimistic statements by Ivanov, it will be quite difficult to justify capital investments in new city. At the same time, the Mayor noted the commitment to perform tasks and not be distracted by a passing difficulties.
'In Innopolis, the infrastructure is ready (almost completed) for 5 thousand people now. In business I got used to set before myself and the team the ambitious goals and to continue to find any tools to solve them, instead of looking for reasons not to do it. The goal of our team is to make sure that these 5 thousand were filled as quickly as possible. How soon it will happen, I don't know. We just have to wait,' said Ivanov.
Who will attract residents and who of them will actually work in the city
The rumors about the resignation of Ivanov from the post of Mayor were closely connected with the questions on the number of inhabitants and the residents of the special economic zone Innopolis. As it turned out, there have also been changes in this respect, the Deputy Prime Minister of Tatarstan, the Minister of Communications of the Republic also have got involved in the attraction of new residents.
'Now the key priority for the city — to attract residents. It is jobs, it is citizens. Indeed, Rustam Nurgalievich Minnikhanov has charged personally to Shaikhutdinov [Roman Shaikhutdinov, Minister of Communications of RT – editor's note] to attract, the entire team and the city are focused on this task, and the process has already started. Last week there was the Supervisory Board, in the framework of the forum [RIF.Innopolis — editor's note] it is planned a number of high-profile announcements,' said Ivanov.
It should be noted that Yegor Ivanov was asked to confirm the transfer of authority from Igor Nosov (the head of SEZ Innopolis) to Roman Shaikhutdinov to search the residents. The above response was interpreted by many media as a confirmation of the curtailment of the powers of the SEZ administration. However, the adviser to Nosov for public relations Diana Permyakova said to Realnoe Vremya that the special economic zone was not taken away the authority to search residents, and they continue to have it, just now the Minister also got involved to the work.
Chinese did not come
As for high-profile announcements at the upcoming RIF.Innopolis, Realnoe Vremya will follow the development of events, however, the big announcements took place a year ago as well. For example, the signed in the summer of 2015 agreement between I-Teco, Huawei, SEZ Innopolis and Innopolis University was stalled. The plan of the residents was the construction of a data processing center for the University.
'I-Teco Company somehow is present in the city, only in other lines of business, because they became one of the first our residents. As for their cooperation with Huawei, I do not know the details, I only know that the Chinese company has not appeared in Innopolis,' said Ivanov.
Also, there were good news. During the press conference, it was announced and signed an agreement stating that the company Postgres Professional is planning to move its head office from Moscow to Innopolis. The firm is engaged in the development of database management systems. In the press release of the company it is noted that the move in Innopolis will allow saving on the taxes up to 20%.
The Deputy Director General of Postgres Professional Ivan Panchenko noted that, coming to Moscow and getting into big companies, many programmers die creatively. Panchenko emphasised that in Russia the development market is centralized enough, when it is possible to make earn 'Moscow wages' in the regions. The company puts a special emphasis on the Innopolis University, which is expected to give new employees of the company.