Mr. Vincenzo Trani, President of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce, gave comments to Invest Foresight on activities of Italian companies in Russia in general and in Russia’s special economic zones in particular. As he noted, those were effective tools and have helped foreign businesses.
“I believe that special economic zones play an important part in promoting economic relations between the two countries, specifically in the manufacturing sectors,” Mr. Trani said. “At some point, they were the only tool to facilitate foreign investments in industrial production in Russia. Promoting industrial manufacturing has rightfully been the key focus for the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce, yet I believe that nowadays there may also be other areas, apart from industrial production per se, that deserve attention. I must stress though that without special economic zones it was impossible to bring local industrial production to the current level.”
As Vincenzo Trani pointed out, “I doubt though that the number of special economic zones in Russia should grow further as in my view their number is quite sufficient already. The IRCC should focus its activities on helping entrepreneurs and business people in expanding into new sectors in addition to industrial production, on increasing the number of residents and operators in the existing special economic zones. That should be our major aim. The number of companies operating in Russia could be much greater, and it is therefore probably our fault it is not that large, as our prime goal is to have respective businesses informed of the business environment and the opportunities of the special economic zones.”