During the meeting in the Murmansk Regional Duma, Svetlana Panfilova, Minister of Arctic Development and Economy of the Murmansk Region, reported on the forecast of socio-economic development of the Murmansk Region for 2024 and the planning period of 2025 and 2026. According to her, the situation in the region's economy will continue to remain stable and with growth targets, it will not do without "personal records of the region."
The companies' investment and production plans have been taken into account for the next 3 years. The Murmansk region is the absolute leader in the number of residents of the Russian Arctic: to date, 219 have already been registered in the region. Together, residents of the TOP "Capital of the Arctic" and the Russian Arctic have already invested more than 200 billion rubles and created about 4.5 thousand jobs.
In the active investment and construction phase, there are major projects for the Integrated development of the Murmansk transport hub, the construction of the coal transshipment complex "Lavna Commercial Sea Port" and railway tracks, the marine transshipment complex of LNG LLC "Arctic Transshipment", which are aimed at strengthening the position of the region as a reference port for the development of the Northern Sea Route.
Improving the quality of life of people, the development of social sectors and infrastructure in the forecast period will be facilitated by the activities of national projects, as well as the strategic plan "In the North – to live", initiated by the Governor of the Murmansk region Andrey Chibis. Among them are such social innovations as the regional package of support for young mothers and families with children, the personnel service "Course to the North", the implementation of unique projects to create modern youth spaces "SOPKI", as well as spaces in education, for example, the Arctic School project.
"The basic version of the forecast takes into account key development factors and assumes moderate economic growth, which will be slightly ahead of the Russian trend. The average annual growth rate of GRP is 3.3%, in Russia GDP is 2.7%. Investment projects that have already finished using tax benefits show tax returns – for 1 ruble of tax benefits, they additionally gave almost 5 rubles of tax revenues to the budget. Additional income is directed to socially significant needs and to the development of infrastructure for people," Svetlana Panfilova said.
The drivers of the economy in the next 3 years will be enterprises of the manufacturing industry, transport complex, construction. The recovery growth of industrial production and investment in 2024 will consolidate and accelerate from 2025. This will be facilitated by a number of system decisions taken for the economy of the region, as well as the planned modernization of key production complexes. For the period from 2019 to 2026, the volume of investments in the development of the economy and social sphere of the region can reach almost 2 trillion rubles.
As a result of the implementation of major infrastructure projects and the commissioning of transshipment capacities, by the end of the forecast period, the volume of cargo handling of seaports and transshipment complexes in the region will exceed the level of 2022 by 1.7 times, and in 2026 it will exceed the record mark of 100 million tons per year.
Economic growth will also be supported by the growth of consumer activity in the region. The Murmansk Region is among the TOP 10 regions in terms of total retail trade turnover per capita – 360 thousand rubles per year and in the next three years it will increase its potential by increasing turnover by 2% per year.
Real wages are also forecast to rise and unemployment is expected to fall to record lows.
The development of the small and medium–sized business sector will actively help to ensure consumer activity of the population and reduce unemployment - the provision of tax and property support to SMEs will continue. In addition, a grant "Governor's Start", "Innovation Voucher" and a grant for existing entrepreneurs to purchase franchises are also provided for the development of SMEs.
Residents of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation in the forecast period will implement a number of small investment projects in the field of tourism, roadside service, which could also benefit from infrastructure support. The result is a strong trend of accelerating the growth of tourist traffic.
"As a result of the work on retaining and attracting personnel for the implementation of large infrastructure projects and for work in the public sector, the implementation of the task of supporting settlements in the Arctic zone of Russia, as well as other measures, in the forecast period, migration population growth and an increase in the share of the able-bodied population, including due to the growth of life expectancy. Structural changes in the economy, as well as the growth of people's well–being will yield results - GRP will increase by 10.2% in 3 years. At current prices, GRP in the region will exceed 2 million rubles per year per inhabitant of the region. All implemented new projects and activities, as well as the stable operation of all production facilities will form a solid basis for the sustainability of the regional budget for the next 3 years, which means that they will improve people's living conditions, increase the availability of social services and create additional opportunities for self–realization of citizens," Svetlana Panfilova concluded.
/ Ministry of Arctic Development and Economy of the Murmansk Region /