Saint Petersburg investment check-up: what Tatarstan brings back from SPIEF’25

Photo: предоставлено пресс-службой раиса Татарстана

To strengthen ties with Central Asia

“The three-day working program of the Tatarstan delegation was very busy. During SPIEF’25, negotiations were held with international partners from Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Republika Srpska, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Bahrain,” Rustam Minnikhanov outlined the geography of the republic's interests at SPIEF’25. Plus, on the final day of the forum, a meeting was held with First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Roman Sklyar, who oversees investment projects of Tatarstan companies for expansion into foreign markets, he added. In this direction, 2025 may be a turning point. In the west of Kazakhstan, in the Atyrau region, Tatneft is to launch the production of butadiene rubbers worth $1 billion, and near Karaganda in the southwest, it is to bring the KamaTyresKZ tyre plant worth $284 million to its design capacity.

It was not said whether new initiatives are being discussed against the backdrop of expanding industrial cooperation with Russia. But among the CIS countries, Kazakhstan remains Tatarstan's largest foreign partner. Bilateral trade turnover for 2024 amounted to almost $600 million. In the coming years, the parties intend to increase this figure to $1 billion. Kyrgyzstan will become a new partner from the CIS countries. “We are interested in expanding the presence of leading Tatarstan companies in Kyrgyzstan,” Minnikhanov said at a meeting with First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic Daniyar Amangeldiyev. Obviously, SPIEF’25 provided an opportunity to compare notes with many partners in Central Asia, where new export routes are opening up for business and logistics costs are being reduced. This is in line with the main theme of the current forum: “Common values are the basis for growth in a multipolar world.”

Warm wind of the Northern capital

The head of the republic summed up the preliminary results of Tatarstan's participation in SPIEF immediately after returning to Kazan, on Friday afternoon. As usual, he spoke briefly and without unnecessary details. “Agreements and plans for joint events with a number of Russian regions have been signed,” he said. But, judging by the reports of the governors' press services, many interesting things have appeared on this front.

Thus, we can count on a reboot of trade and economic relations with Saint Petersburg. On the last day of SPIEF, Rustam Minnikhanov met with Governor Alexander Beglov.

Before that, they had communicated two years ago at the St. Petersburg Gas Forum, agreeing to extend the roadmap. This time, the heads of the regions finally signed an action plan for developing cooperation for 2025-2029. “The mutual understanding between Saint Petersburg and Tatarstan helps the two regions to jointly prepare federal-level initiatives," Beglov noted. On the same day, Tatarstan signed a partnership agreement with the Leningrad Region.

Currently, interregional trade turnover with Saint Petersburg is 30.8 billion rubles, which is the same as in 2016. Of these, 10 billion rubles come from the Leningrad Region, and long-standing suppliers include KAMAZ, Ak Bars HC, and Tatkhimpharmpreparaty.

However, there are other figures. According to the Republican Marketing Centre, business deliveries through electronic services to St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region last year amounted to 6.58 billion rubles. For comparison, to the Ulyanovsk Region — 6.6 billion rubles, to the Moscow Region — 7.7 billion rubles, and to Moscow — 20.8 billion rubles. It was not said what the new agreements would contain, but there is hope that invisible barriers will no longer hinder the expansion of trade ties. In general, Tatarstan's trade turnover with Russian regions amounted to an impressive 500 billion rubles last year.

Tatneft to hit the roads of Veliky Ustyug and Dagestan

A notable event at the forum was the signing of Tatneft agreements on expanding its network of gas stations in the regions. New points will appear in the northwest and in the south. The Vologda Region government is currently working on the issue of building a network of Tatneft gas stations in the region, the press service of the governor reported. “There are only nine of them at the moment. Georgy Filimonov (the author's note: the head of the region) suggested that Rustam Minnikhanov consider the possibility of entering the Vologda-Velikiy Ustyug highway, leading from the regional capital to the birthplace of Father Frost, one of the key tourist destinations of the Vologda region,” the press service of the region explained. The exact dates for the appearance of the gas station have not yet been specified.

At the same time, the governor asked Minnikhanov to “share” residents for the Vologda IT Park, which is being created “in the image and likeness of the park named after Bashir Rameyev.” “We will discuss with IT companies whether they are ready to become residents of the IT park in the Vologda region," the governor replied, without making hasty promises. And he proposed a counter idea — to “localize” a marketing center for small and medium businesses. “This is our development, and it really works. Here, Vologda entrepreneurs will be able to promote the products of local manufacturers,” Minnikhanov urged.

Dagestan also opened access for Tatneft. “I know how Dagestanis suffer from the quality of local fuel, I have repeatedly raised this issue at various levels,” wrote the head of the region, Sergei Melikov, in his Telegram channel, commenting on the signing of an agreement with Tatneft at SPIEF’25. “Now a major player will appear in the region, and this means investments, taxes, and the development of competition.”

However, gas stations under the Tatneft brand will operate on a franchise basis, the company specified. Cooperation with Sevastopol and Tuva will expand. Agreements have been signed with them for 2025-2027.

After the end of the forum, the heads of many regions announced record investments. It was reported that 1,060 agreements worth 6.3 trillion rubles had been signed. It is unclear whether any deals to attract investment to Tatarstan were concluded. The head of the Tatarstan Investment Development Agency, Taliya Minullina, brought 200 investment projects to the forum, which were proposed to be implemented in the municipalities of the republic. It was not reported whether any of the bets played out. But on the final day of the forum, it became known about KAMAZ's intention to build a plant for assembling transfer cases for trucks in Saratov. The estimated investment is 20 billion rubles. The agreement on this was signed by KAMAZ CEO Sergei Kogogin and the governor of the region Roman Busargin. It is expected that the assembly will appear on the territory of the Stolypin Industrial Park, and it is planned to create 300 jobs.

Can Nizhny displace Tatarstan on the podium

Tatarstan took second place in the National Rating of the Investment Climate of Regions for 2024, sharing it with the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The outcome of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives' competition for Tatarstan was unpredictable, since last year an ambitious rival appeared among the regions. The Nizhny Novgorod Region improved its position, sharply rising from sixth to second place next to Tatarstan. Until now, the republic had continuously held second place since 2019, without falling below third place (this happened only once, in 2018), and had no pursuers. “It seems that he "”dozed off” a little up there," said one of the interlocutors.

At the end of 2024, ASI changed the rating methodology, increasing the number of indicators from 70 to 110. The number of areas by which the investor's user path in the regions is assessed has increased to eight. As a result, Moscow again took first place, and Tatarstan and the Nizhny Novgorod Region rose to second place, Bashkortostan and the Moscow Region rose to third. The organizers chose not to publicly disclose the number of points each of the competing regions scored this time. “The details of the results are passed on to the teams of regional leaders and are distributed by them at their own discretion,” the ASI press service explained to Realnoe Vremya.

“We won one rating, moved up there, and then what?

Some governors posted on their Telegram channels right away, telling about their achievements in working with investors. Rustam Minnikhanov did something different. He posted a photo with the mayor of Moscow on his Telegram channel and signed it: “Moscow — Tatarstan. With the respected Mr Kogogin.” This is not just a political compliment. Most likely, the head of the republic decided to express support for the mayor of Moscow, who spoke with slight irony about the rating of regions.

“The number of indicators (the author’s note: regional assessments) — if you add up the indicators of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives’ national projects and the rating of governors, you get about 5,000. Even with the help of artificial intelligence, taking [rating data] into account, believe me, will be very difficult, — he noted at the panel session. “Of course, we need to take into account the movement [of regions] in these ratings, learn from experience, but the most important thing is not the process, but the result,” said Sergei Sobyanin. — The whole team should be focused on the result. Okay, we won one rating, we moved up there, and then what? "

He believes that the results of the regions' work should be assessed by how “the economy, investments, population incomes, relations between business and power, and then “your places” will be clear. “You have to continue to live in real life and achieve success,” he concluded.

Nevertheless, the authorities of the republic set the task of reducing the time for investors to obtain technical conditions for connecting to utility networks. Thus, the most difficult to access is connecting to gas supply networks. This takes almost a year and a half (482 days). “The task is to reduce the time by half — to six months (224 days). This year, we are set to speed up the standard terms for issuing a construction permit — from 316 to 201 days, as well as the provision of a land plot based on the results of an auction — to two months (75 days),” said the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan Midkhat Shagiakhmetov.

“Moscow and Tatarstan have actively invested in the digitalization of processes related to public administration, so many parameters for assessing efficiency, the speed of issuing permits, the speed of connecting to communications, and so on could have been at a high level,” says Managing Director of the Sovereign and Regional Ratings Group at ACRA Yelena Anisimova. In addition, Moscow and Tatarstan have a developed infrastructure and are actively working with investors, which also contributes to the rating — some of the indicators are formed through surveys of experts — entrepreneurs.

“Tatarstan shared positions with the Nizhny Novgorod Region, and it is good that there are regions that are constantly breathing down its neck,” said Artur Nikolayev, Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “The rating is based on a survey of entrepreneurs, so it should be taken very seriously. It is objective, since it is not possible to influence with administrative resources. I know that there were regions that took an overly administrative approach and tried to pull up the results, after which their points were cut. Serious work on infrastructure is underway in the republic, many investment forums are taking place, so it will not be easy to overtake,” he concluded.