“The Government of the Russian Federation is working out the budget for three years and we believe that it should include sufficient funds to support the overall development of Saint-Petersburg, including the overall development of port industrial capacity of the Gulf of Finland, port infrastructure in Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region.” This statement was made by Artur Chilingarov, vice-chairman of the State Duma, member of the High Council of the political party “United Russia”, the member of the Sea Board under the President of RF, on March, 3rd during round-table conference in Saint-Petersburg. He specified that “in this way the task of forming the innovative economics set by the President will be realized in practice”. According to Chiligarov some of these projects were already launched and the political party “United Russia” will support them.
He considers that the development of the fleet is of prime importance for Saint-Petersburg. He stated: “Saint-Petersburg played key role for the development of Russia as a maritime state, and this city should continue to function as a maritime capital of our country. That’s why our project is called the same way “Saint-Petersburg - a maritime capital of Russia.”
The project is meant for the development of commercial and passenger ports of Saint-Petersburg. In the nearest future according to the calculations of “United Russia” about 50% of all Russian export cargoes to the countries of the European Union and about the same of import cargoes will be handled in Saint-Petersburg. At the moment the city handles about 20% of all Russian export and transit cargoes. However it is clear that the realization of the whole project is impossible without special legislative acts.
