Moscow makes haste to cut red tape

The city of Moscow is taking a number of steps to improve its image abroad in a bid to attract more foreign investment, Andrei Sharonov, deputy mayor of Moscow, told PropertyEU.

The city of Moscow is taking a number of steps to improve its image abroad in a bid to attract more foreign investment, Andrei Sharonov, deputy mayor of Moscow, told PropertyEU.

Speaking during an interview at ULI Europe’s annual conference in Paris last week, Sharonov said greater transparency and removing red tape were key priorities for the Moscow city authorities.

‘For both foreign and domestic investors, procedures are often unclear. Our task to is to disclose as much as possible and to provide clear overviews of which government agencies need to be approached.’

Sharonov claims the city has already made significant progress in simplifying procedures for obtaining a construction permit. ‘It’s a huge challenge to radically improve the situation. But we have made a start. In the past, investors needed to go through 48 procedures to obtain a construction permit, this has now been reduced to 14.’

Sharonov stressed that the procedures for obtaining a construction permit were now regulated by law. ‘Unfortunately in the past we saw some public employees increasing the number of procedures on their own. We are trying to stop that.’

Progress is also being made on other fronts, Sharonov reported. Russia is now becoming a leader in terms of the number of days it takes to register a company. This has been cut to just six, he said. ‘We see some improvements. We’re trying to facilitate business planning with very practical procedures. We hope that the next rating by the World Bank on Russia as a country for doing business will demonstrate some improvement.’

The next rating by the World Bank is due in May or June of this year, he added.

The full interview appears in the next issue of PropertyEU Magazine.