Moscow continues improving the transport and road infrastructure, creating a comfortable urban environment and implementing other projects and there are no reasons to change Moscow’s development strategy amid the coronavirus epidemic, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin noted at the Strong Ideas for New Times Forum, website of Moscow government reports.
“We will continue to implement a strategy aimed at creating a competitive global city. It calls for infrastructure, transport, social and economic improvements and the creation of a comfortable competitive urban environment on a par with other global cities. This is our basic aspiration and objective, and we will not deviate from this trajectory despite budgetary and economic challenges,” the Moscow Mayor pointed out. He believes the city economy will start recovering very quickly as soon as the coronavirus epidemic subsides. “In my opinion, 2021 will be a difficult year, and its beginning may be even more challenging than 2020, but we expect improvements and economic normalization in the city, the country and the rest of the world by the end of 2021.”
Moscow had been affected by absolutely all consequences of the pandemic. “Absolutely all global trends have had an impact on the Moscow economy. If energy use is down in Europe, this is decreasing the revenues of our energy companies, which reduce their investment and pay less tax,” he said. “In addition to this, the pandemic has hit the tourism industry hard, because foreigners cannot visit Moscow. The revenues of hotel businesses and the tourism sector as a whole are down by 60%,” the Mayor added. However, the Moscow economy is quite flexible and does not depend on any one particular sector, which means that it can quickly recover after the pandemic.