I. Metshin: “Paperwork should not turn into a seven circles of hell”

(KZN.RU, December 5, Mikhail Chentsov). New business support tool was introduced in Kazan: the project office, which main task is to eliminate administrative barriers in order to improve the business climate of the city. Ivan Kuznetsov, the deputy head of the Executive Committee for Economic Development, spoke about the details of the project today at the Business Monday.

According to I. Kuznetsov, the creation of a project office does not mean the creation of a separate structure of the Executive Committee with an increase in full-time units. “Project teams for municipal services for businesses are established in the framework of the project office. Heads of departments of the Executive Committee and the heads of the operating organizations, deputies of the Kazan City Duma are included in the project teams”, he said.

Entrepreneurs will be invited for a detailed analysis of each service, provided to businesses, and identifying weaknesses. Thereafter, the intermediate variants of solutions for municipal services will be submitted for consideration of the Coordinating Council, chaired by the Mayor of Kazan, for the adoption of specific solutions to bring this or that initiative to the Government of Tatarstan, including Rustam Minnikhanov, the President of the republic, and federal authorities.

“I hope that as many entrepreneurs as possible will engage to this work. We call on them not just to offer ideas. We offer to disassemble the municipal services brick by brick like a building and to become its architects and builders together with us”, marked I. Kuznetsov.

I. Metshin noted that the launch of the project office is not just another step in the development of an enabling environment for entrepreneurship; it is, above all, a challenge to themselves. “This is not just an action to show our loyalty to the business community. I subscribe to this initiative and give my word. This word needs to be implemented, as well as our initiative to support small and medium-sized businesses at a reduced lending, at the “rent holidays”. There is a result: 66 rooms were realized. There are projects, implemented in the field of medicine, the processing industry and souvenirs. We begin to do what we promised, step by step. Yes, we are faced with a few problems, for example, somewhere there is no registration certificate, but in any case we have passed this way, and we will continue”, said the Mayor.

“A construction permit cannot be written on the knee and be provided throughout the day. This is a complex document, which is associated with the safety of inhabitants, with the architectural image of Kazan, which is laid for centuries. But the paperwork should not turn into a seven circles of hell, when the desire to invest and to do something within the community leads to reluctance to go through these authorities corridors. There must be a golden middle and we have to move with careful, correct and systematic steps to the golden middle”, said the Mayor.

The Mayor of the Tatarstan’s capital also stressed that there is the need to build respectful relationships with representatives of Kazan small and medium-sized businesses, who want to implement their own initiatives to the benefit of citizens. “We must go to meet them and reduce administrative barriers with exactly the same desire, with which they want to implement their business ideas. Of course, much is being done, and this is the reason why Kazan and Tatarstan are leaders in business conditions. But the road has not yet been passed, and we are not the perfect place for the best initiative to flock here, at least so far only from the Volga region. Not only the municipality approves the documents, it is our colleagues from different levels of the republican and federal authorities. We are working on a single task, headed by Rustam Minnikhanov, the President of Tatarstan, which always supports such initiatives not only in words but in deeds. So I have no doubt that we will get his support, the support of our colleagues from the government agencies and the federal government”, concluded I. Metshin.

The Mayor secured personal responsibility to the leaders of all the structures of the Executive Committee for their participation in the project office, stressing that their interest and performance will be taken into account in assessing the work of the whole structure.