In the past few years, Moscow has significantly improved its investment activity indicators among other regions of the Russian Federation. For the past two years, Moscow has not left first place in the official rating of cities in Russia according to the characteristics of investment activity. As a reminder, back in 2015, the capital ranked only 13th in this rating.

Development in the context of the global crisis

Even in the past 2020, which took place against the backdrop of an unprecedented global crisis, the capital has continued to actively attract large amounts of investment in fixed capital and production.

As Deputy Mayor for Economic Policy Vladimir Efimov said, with all the difficulties of this crisis year, the investment attractiveness of the capital for domestic capitals has not fallen, but even increased. Investments were made in real estate, innovative projects and industrial production of products with export potential.

In the first two quarters of 2020, capital investments in Moscow crossed the barrier of a trillion rubles, said Vladimir Yefimov. According to him, it is more than 8 percent more than in 2019 for the same first six months. It should be understood that budgetary investments accounted for less than a third, and 77 percent of the sources of revenue were private business and individual investors.

In general, over the past 10 years, investments in fixed capital in Moscow have more than doubled in money terms. According to Efimov, this may serve as strong evidence in favor of the fact that Moscow is pursuing the right policy to support operating businesses and attract funds to create a new one.

With the participation of attracted investment funds in Moscow a favorable environment for the development of innovative sector and industrial production in general is created. More and more Moscow enterprises supply their products to foreign markets. It is not only about Russia's closest partners, Belarus or Kazakhstan, but also about European and Asian markets.

Support of investments in industry with export potential

The capital's leadership pursues a consistent policy to promote the development of the industrial sector, the introduction of innovations and, on the whole, the creation of favorable conditions and broad prospects for investors. Moscow enterprises receive administrative and consulting assistance, tax benefits or even direct financial subsidies.

For example, financial support is given to some enterprises which supply their products for export. We are talking about those companies which really need such support, this is determined on an individual basis. Another factor stimulating investment activity in Moscow is the Targeted Investment Program.

The city authorities pay special attention to large-scale industrial manufacturers of export-competitive products. At present there are already more than 700 such enterprises in the city. Alexander Prokhorov, the head of Moscow department of investment policy, gave an actual assessment of Moscow industrial production in investment aspect. He stressed that over the past decades, Moscow industry has changed qualitatively. There has been a transformation from obsolete plants in old buildings with abundant harmful emissions to the modern high-tech clean production with high wages and comfortable working conditions. The enterprises themselves fit harmoniously into the urban planning concept and infrastructure of Moscow.

The program of investment support for efficient industrial enterprises in Moscow has been in effect since 2016. The city authorities support the most promising and efficient companies in every way possible, creating special economic zones, technoparks and other progressive projects in the real sector.

Special attention is paid to those companies that themselves actively invest in their own development and focus on creating high-paying jobs. They can expect to receive special status. Depending on the characteristics and scale, a company or group of companies may be granted technopark status, industrial complex status, or, as part of an existing technopark, anchor resident status. Absolutely new startups, under certain conditions, can count on the status of an investment priority project (IPP).

For reference: the segment of investment priority projects has actively developed over the past few years. Such status is granted by the city authorities to those companies, which are engaged in construction, scaling and modernization of industrial productions, industrial and technology parks, industrial complexes. Also for IPP status can apply projects that are implemented under the concession agreement, public-private partnership. Separately the city considers a possibility of assigning a special status to projects outside the sphere of industry and production - culture, art, education, social services. Such promising undertakings can also become IPPs.

Obtaining any of the above-mentioned statuses allows for tangible preferences in regional taxes and reducing the tax burden by 17 percent or more, up to 25 percent. This gives additional opportunities to reduce the cost of production and get advantages in foreign markets for exports.

Such special statuses have already obtained more than 120 companies in the capital. In total in Moscow there are now 36 technology parks, 15 anchor residents, 13 IPPs and 58 industrial complexes. Only industrial complexes have invested more than 33 billion rubles in their own production over the past 5 years. During the same period, the city authorities have provided industrial complexes with a variety of benefits for more than 4 billion rubles. The total investment of companies with special statuses amounted to almost 100 billion rubles. These companies employ over 120 thousand people.