Economic Forum in St. Petersburg: Why China is eyeing Sevastopol
Foreign business, especially Chinese business, is demonstrating a serious increase in interest in working with Sevastopol, said Governor Sergei Menyailo, commenting on meetings at the international economic forum in St. Petersburg.
Sevastopol, where a free economic zone has been created, has advantages for Russian and foreign businesses. It is profitable to invest money here. The Sevastopol delegation led by Menyailo has already signed cooperation agreements with the Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Orenburg and Tula regions at the forum.
Strengthening ties with the regions of the Russian Federation is extremely important in the context of Crimea being under sanctions, says Vice-Governor Alexander Reshetnikov.
The agreement with Tula is especially worth noting, given the great industrial potential of the region, which is one of the largest arms producers. Sevastopol at one time also occupied not the last place in the Soviet defense system.
Since February 2016, GRU General Alexey Dyumin has been appointed to the post of Tula governor. He is one of those who participated in the Crimean Spring. Dyumin and Menyailo will find a common language in the matter of interaction between Sevastopol and the Tula region. Soon, Tula children will begin traveling to Sevastopol as part of a patriotic education program.
Menyailo says that in addition to Russian regions and Russian business, both European businessmen and the Chinese were interested in Sevastopol at the forum. This is gratifying. For Sevastopol, everything is just beginning: taking advantage of the fact that a free economic zone has been created in it, the city has every chance of becoming a sort of Russian micro-Hong Kong.
And here the palm in this matter belongs, of course, to Russia’s most important geopolitical allies – the Chinese. Their more than 30 years of experience in creating special economic zones on their coast can be useful in Sevastopol.
It is cheaper to produce on the coast than inland. And the Chinese have already begun to show interest in the city. If someone was at the parade in Sevastopol on May 9, they might have noticed a large (30-40 people) Chinese delegation. She was given a special place of honor near the memorial dedicated to the defense of the city during the Great Patriotic War. If someone says that this is an accident, then let them answer why China should openly send its citizens to celebrate a holiday in the Russian region, located tens of thousands of kilometers from the Middle Kingdom, and even under American and European sanctions. Is Vladivostok or Moscow not enough for them to honor the memory of the fallen Russians? The Chinese, thus, show that they are not indifferent to this city, and that they connect something with it.
Knowing that they don’t do anything for nothing, we must understand that they have certain plans for Sevastopol. It seems that their main goal is to make Sevastopol a stronghold for the promotion of Chinese goods, on the one hand, to the European part of Russia, and, on the other, to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Why Sevastopol? Here it is possible, for example, to organize an assembly base that will operate under conditions of reduced taxes, therefore, it will be more profitable to supply goods to the Russian market.
It is impossible to create such a stronghold in the Middle East and North Africa, because there are permanent wars and revolutions there. This cannot be done in southern Europe - it is expensive. The Black Sea coast remains. Turkish is not suitable due to Kurdish terror and the war in Syria and Iraq. Bulgaria and Romania in NATO and the EU. They won't give it. Georgia - for the reasons listed above.
The Black Sea coast of Ukraine - Novorossiya - seems to be suitable, but due to the fact that sooner or later this region will face another Russian spring or a war between the “dill” and the “Colorado vatniks”, and in general, given the general political instability of Ukraine, invest here money is dangerous.
Neither the Russian Caucasian coast nor the South Coast are suitable. Sevastopol, thus, turns out to be the only place where a Chinese support base for economic expansion could be created. A city of almost half a million, a mild climate, qualified personnel left over from the times of the USSR. The special economic zone makes doing business here attractive in terms of low-cost production.
In addition, the Russian authorities will invest more in infrastructure, and the Chinese will invest in production. If this comes true, Sevastopol will flourish.
If no one has any objections to sending part of the goods to Russia, then skeptics may recall the sanctions that will not allow goods to be imported to Europe from Sevastopol. But the solution here is simple: just remember the experience of socialist Romania, when Romanians sewed suits and sold them to Italians, and they simply sewed on Italian labels and sent them to America, Germany and France, or, for example, when Romanians sold meat to Argentines, and they sold it all over the world, as if it were our own.
That is, goods produced in Sevastopol will arrive in Europe under a different label. Here is the solution to the problem.
If these plans come true, then Sevastopol will have the fate of the fastest growing Russian Black Sea city. New factories will be built here, new European districts will appear, the white city will be reconstructed.
So Sevastopol will turn into a truly Mediterranean city with “Chinese characteristics.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.