Taliya Minullina at KazanForum: ‘We consider Tatarstan as an entrance point to the Russian and CIS market’
Tatarstan is ready to provide as tolerant and good working conditions as for investors, claimed Taliya Minullina, head of the Tatarstan Investment Development Agency at International Investments: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow… Challenges, Opportunities and the Role of Tatarstan in the development of economic cooperation at KazanForum. According to her, the republic is now considered as a point of entrance to the Russian and CIS market for companies from Islamic countries. Read more about it in Realnoe Vremya’s report.
Criteria for development of relations between Tatarstan and Islamic countries: logistics, financial infrastructure and technological independence
Taliya Minullina singled out three parameters of critical infrastructure to develop relations between Islamic countries and Russia. First, it is logistic infrastructure.
“It is what can today allow creating an absolutely new level of trade relations and further implementation of investment projects, will help improve our system of relationships in social and other affairs,” she stressed.
A system of financial infrastructure, including Islamic banking, is second. It should be reminded that a an Islamic banking experiment has been held in four pilot regions — Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Chechen and Dagestan — since 1 September 2023. Its preliminary results can be announced precisely at KazanForum 2024. According to Tatarstan Governor Rustam Minnikhanov, “It is a significant instrument to expand the cooperation with countries of the Islamic world.
“In general, it is about the situation with international payments in foreign currencies Russian entrepreneurs have faced, and it requires quite fast decisions to make sure businesses operate effectively and keep their growth pace,” the head of TIDA claimed.
Thirdly, it is technological independence in science and technology.
“I think it is very important today. It is digital immunity we all need to have, cybersecurity issues, issues related to the development of local software and so on. It is what I consider the most important issue,” said Taliya Minullina.
According to her, critical infrastructure is needed for trade, otherwise, there will be no investments.
As for investments, Tatarstan has good potential in agriculture- it is both agricultural machinery and food processing.
“We are ready to implement joint projects in staff training, we have good positions in educational institutions. Of course, we do in digitalisation, we have three IT Parks, Innopolis. International companies come to us precisely for digitalisation. In this respect, Tatarstan is very bright in Russia. We are ready to provide as tolerant and good working conditions as possible for investors, help their teams to hire qualified staff, provide them with access to the market. And, of course, today we consider Tatarstan as a point of entrance to the Russian and CIS markets for companies from Islamic countries,” highlighted Taliya Minullina.