Taliya Minullina: “90% of investments went to 10 districts — that scares me very much”

“For an investor to appear, it is not enough simply to sit and wait for him”

In Kazan the first module of the educational program for municipal investment commissioners started. The very institution of commissioners arose in 2024, and since last year it has been actively introduced in the regions. In the districts this status is usually received by the deputy head for economics and investments.

The program is aimed at increasing the investment attractiveness of the municipalities of Tatarstan and is organized by the forces of the Investment Development Agency of the Republic of Tatarstan. Work with investors requires not only knowledge of regulations, but also a deep understanding of the specifics of the territory, emphasized the head of the agency, Taliya Minullina. In her opinion, the support of an investment project must not be formal; the key priority is the achievement of a sustainable result that will directly affect the quality of life of the residents of the municipalities:

— Terrible data — 90% of private investments of Tatarstan fall to just 10 districts. This scares me very much! What is the problem of the rest? I think it is always convenient to find justifications in the external environment: sanctions, taxes were raised, powers were taken away from municipalities, budgets are small. Very convenient, and most importantly, true — now Covid, now the SMO. All this is understandable. But if you want to change the world, you must begin with yourself. If a person in his place does everything so that nothing falls apart — this is good. But if he does something proactive — new projects, enterprises — he too can enter history, create the foundation of the future of Tatarstan.

Instead of seeking justifications for insufficient results, municipalities should begin with their own proactive work, considers Minullina. Within the framework of the program the emphasis is placed on constant communication with the investment commissioners and help to them in forming new proposals. “Even within the republic we have money. It is simply necessary to work with it correctly. So far on this path, it seems to me, we are limping a little," noted the head of the agency.

In her lecture she plans to analyze in detail the practical aspects of the work:

— Investors came to my office and said that money was taken from them for some social projects, that snow was not cleared. As long as on the ground they do not work well with those entrepreneurs who are already in the district, they will not be able to invite new ones. For an investor to appear, it is not enough simply to sit in Yutazinsky district and wait for him. One must clearly understand how he will fit into the current production chain, who can be his supplier, what raw material there is, what land there is, what connection points there are.

Separately at the agency they noted that attention must be paid not only to large but also to medium projects (with a volume of 50—100 million rubles), and responsibility for their support must be distributed in the team of the municipality, since the head cannot personally control all the details. The Rais of Tatarstan also spoke about increasing the efficiency of supporting investment projects in his address to the State Council. At the stage of implementation business encounters local barriers — land, infrastructural, interdepartmental ones — and the resources of the regional agency are insufficient to support each project directly.

“Each of the 45 districts of the Republic of Tatarstan sits on a gold mine, but does not see this gold”

For the development of the competencies of the investment commissioners in the republic an acceleration and educational program was launched. The goal — not simply to formalize the processes, but to bring the district specialists to an understanding of the strategic significance of investment work and the ability to balance it with current tasks, the organizers explained.

The program is designed for several stages and includes two in-person modules: in October and November, webinars, trainings and masterminds with the participation of federal, regional and international experts. The key speaker — a guest from Ireland, Garrett Johnston, an international expert in the field of commercial and marketing strategies, an expert on complex economic markets, the founder and general director of the company Epiphany, a member of the academic council of the Higher School of Economics. In Tatarstan he is not conducting training for the first time and emphasizes that each district of the republic has enormous potential: “Each of the 45 sits on a potential gold mine, but they do not see this gold.” Local teams, in his words, often do not notice their possibilities, since they are too used to the customary picture. As an example he cited his native country:

— My homeland Ireland is the most successful territory in the world by attracting foreign investments. Although we are a small stone island on the westernmost edge of Europe, like a stone in the vast Atlantic Ocean. Our land is not particularly suitable for agriculture, we have no resources — only the brains of people. But this was enough to make our island considerably richer than the USA. So much richer that we deport illegal Americans every week.

In his opinion, in Tatarstan there are all the prerequisites to achieve comparable results — the region already demonstrates growth of investments against the background of a decline in other subjects, and the awareness that Tatarstan is not Moscow and not St. Petersburg becomes a powerful stimulus. Johnston names as the key quality of a specialist in working with investors not formal qualification, but sincere devotion to his region and an ambitious vision of its future: “He must be for his region like Stalin in relation to the Soviet Union. He must love his native region, be ready to die for it and give everything, from morning to evening create new ideas.”

The task of the municipality is not simply to “sell” the territory, but to make it so attractive that it will sell itself. It is important to identify unique advantages that it will be hard for other regions to reproduce with the same efficiency.

“It is important to see the problems and prospects of the district from the point of view of the investor”

The significance of the training of specialists responsible for the economic development of territories was noted by the head of the Department of State Service and Personnel under the Rais of the Republic of Tatarstan, Alexander Belov. He emphasized that the topic of investments is under the personal control of the leadership of the republic, and the leading positions of Tatarstan in the national rating are not an end in themselves. It is important to create new enterprises and jobs that improve the life of the population of the district. He also noted the growing challenges — the improvement of legislation, the appearance of new documentation and the strengthening of competition between regions.

— Here a large significance, as in the world, is occupied by the professionalism of municipal teams. Today it is very important to see the problems and prospects of the district precisely from the point of view of the investor, how he looks at these questions. Therefore a special training program was prepared, Belov stated.

He called on the participants of the program to actively discuss the arising questions, including those concerning the improvement of the legislative and methodological base. The executive director of the National Association of Investment and Development Agencies (NAAIR), Rafael Khusyainshin, emphasized that continuous training remains critically important for solving the tasks set at the federal, regional and municipal levels. He recalled the strategic goal of Russia — to enter the top twenty of the rating by conditions for doing business. Therefore in the country a regional investment standard was introduced and development agencies were created.

The speaker paid special attention to the role of the municipal investment commissioner, since it is precisely at the level of the municipality that the entrepreneur encounters the real service, and often the local official does not fully understand how he can help the investor. To eliminate this gap a municipal investment standard was introduced, one of the key elements of which became the appointment of commissioners.

— The municipal investment commissioner has many tasks. Powers, unfortunately, are not so many. But you are the face of the territory. You are the one with whom the investor associates your municipality and your territory. Depending on the quality of the service that you render to him, he will perceive your whole municipal formation, explained Rafael Khusainshin.

Speaking before the participants of the training, the acting director of the Higher School of State and Municipal Administration of KFU, Alexander Grunichev, noted the contribution of the apparatus of the agency and colleagues to the organization of the event. He proposed to interpret the name of the program “Development of Investment Potentials” considerably more broadly — not only as the revelation of the potential of the districts, but also as the increase of the general investment potential of Tatarstan. The speaker also called not to concentrate exclusively on large investors: “We all love big business, because it is easier to work with, they know the conditions, they immediately give good results. But, colleagues, I would ask you not to forget about small and medium business. There are many of them, and they too want your support. These words I convey on their behalf.”

The result of the training will be the presentation of the investment strategies of the territories with the participation of the Rais of the republic in December. Within the framework of the first module an off-site event in the technopolis “Khimgrad” is also planned. The main tasks of the program — to form a professional community of investment commissioners, to popularize the municipal investment standard, to exchange best practices of working with investors and to develop proposals for the further introduction of the standard on the ground.