Rustam Minnikhanov at a meeting of the Council on entrepreneurship: Our main trend today is a movement towards an entrepreneur

On July 4, speaking at Kazan Pyramid complex at the 12th extended meeting of the Tatarstan Presidential Council on entrepreneurship, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said that the main trend today is a movement towards an entrepreneur.

Over 200 entrepreneurs, heads of regional authorities, leaders of public business associations, heads of municipal regions of the republic, people’s deputies of Tatarstan State Council and representatives of key regional media took part in the event.

The theme of the meeting was the business activity management system in the municipal regions of Tatarstan.

Minnikhanov emphasized that such a meeting with entrepreneurs in this form has already been held 12 times. “I think this form is positive. We consider the problematic issues that occur at the municipal level, at the regional level and at the federal level. The main task that I set was to change the attitude towards entrepreneurship. Each of us, in particular the representatives of power structures, officials must be focused on establishing an investment climate. We should not just listen to entrepreneurs, but help, promote and create an investment environment. It is a difficult task and consists of many components. These are questions at the legislative level and a lot of things that need to be improved. The most important is that it is up to us to change,” Tatarstan President said. 

Minnikhanov said that at weekly meetings in the Government House of the republic two municipal regions report on their work with small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurship development. “We see what kinds of changes are taking place. I think this work is useful for our colleagues from municipalities and they will know what kind of work is underway in another territory and what decisions are made there,” Minnikhanov said.

Tatarstan President assured that such work will continue: “Our meeting also has a purely municipal emphasis. Today we will listen to the reports from four municipal regions. It is clear that if you wait for everything to be done well, this will never happen. Our main trend today is a movement towards an entrepreneur. Our venue, the Council on Entrepreneurship helps us to discuss many pressing issues”.

Minnikhanov also said that there were changes in the structure of the Council. Commissioner under the President of the Republic of Tatarstan for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights Timur Nagumanov became the acting head of the executive committee of the Almetyevsk municipal region.

Under the work done by project groups, such issues as “Overcoming administrative barriers”, “Development of investment attractiveness of municipal territories”, “Building communication between business and government”, “Solving the problem of staff shortage in municipalities” were considered.

Speaking about overcoming administrative barriers, Minnikhanov drew attention to the work of multifunctional centers. According to him, citizens can build their attitude towards the authorities based on the well-established work in the centres. 

During the meeting, speakers and supporting speakers raised issues of the wage levels in rural areas, measures that could be taken to keep young people in rural areas, training issues in the specialties needed and in demand in the market, the investment attractiveness of municipal territories and the creation of new jobs.

Minnikhanov thanked the moderators of the meeting and the heads of four pilot municipal regions for the presentations made about the developed roadmaps for the development of business activity of the region, namely Nizhnekamsk, Zelenodolsk, Bugulma and Pestrechinsky regions. The heads of the regions reported on the decisions that they made together with the entrepreneurs.