OREANDA-NEWS. November 25, 2010. A meeting of the Working Group on Modernizing Monocities in a format of video conference was held at the situational center of the Russian Regional Development Ministry.

The meeting was conducted by Head of the Working Group, Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman, Irina Makieva. Senior representatives of regional and municipal authorities of 35 cities participated in the meeting. These cities were included by the Russian Government in a list of top-priority cities for 2010.

In the course of the meeting representatives of the monocities informed the Group about the progress of implementing measures provided for by comprehensive investment modernization plans, the execution of the network plans implementation schedule, the conclusion of agreements, as well as about holding tenders and making arrangements for engaging investors in industrial estates under construction, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, apartment buildings renovations, and the resettling of citizens from shabby and dilapidated housing stock.

The meeting’s regional participants expressed their readiness to submit applications for implementing investment projects to Vnesheconombank’s consideration (11 projects from 16 monocities). The projects are aimed at overcoming monodependence.

The Program of Providing the State’s Support for Monocities is aimed at diversifying the economy. It has been carried out as part of the Government’s anti-crisis program since the end of 2009.

In 2010, the Working Group under the Governmental Commission on Economic Development and Integration considered 35 comprehensive modernization plans and worked out proposals for budget financing of 35 cities (25 from a pilot list and 10 from an additional list) in 2010 in the form of grant-in-aids and subsidies. There are 335 monocities in Russia.

A pilot list of monocities: Togliatti (the Samara region), Baikalsk (the Irkutsk region),Pikalevo (the Leningrad region), Nizhny-Tagil, Asbest, Kamensk-Uralsky (the Sverdlov region), Sokol (the Volgograd region), Semiluki (the Voronezh region), Prokopjevsk, Leninsk-Kuznetsky (The Kemerovo region), Vyatskie Polyany (the Kirov region), Revda, Kovdor (the Murmansk region), Chusovoy (the Perm territory), Dalnegorsk, Svetlogorje (the Primorsky territory), Kamskie Polyany, Naberezhnye Chelny, (the Republic of Tatarstan), Gavrilov-Yam, Tutaev (the Yaroslavl region), Zavolzhje, Pavlovo (the Nizhny Novgorod region).

An additional list of monocities: Rostov (the Yaroslavl region), Novocheboksarsk (the Republic of Chuvashia), Tashtagol (the Kemerovo region), Ust-Ilimsk (the Irkutsk region), Severodvinsk (the Archangel region), Chistopol (the Republic of Tatarstan), Surazh (the Bryansk region), Pestovo (the Novgorod region), Krasnovishersk (the Perm territory), Cherepovets (the Volgograd region).