The communist governor managed to crack down on the Chinese mafia in Siberia
In the Irkutsk region on the shores of Lake Baikal, through the efforts of the communist governor Sergei Levchenko, it was possible to significantly reduce the volume of illegal logging, much of which previously went to neighboring China under “gray” schemes.
“We took an inventory and saw 300 businesses that are unregistered in these areas. No one had gotten around to it or had the desire to establish this order. In 16, in the first half of the year, we did this inventory and forced everyone to register for taxes,” Levchenko said on the Red Line TV channel about the first step to restore order.
As a result, from 2016 to 2018, the volume of illegal deforestation decreased by 47% - from 1112,9 thousand cubic meters to 569,7 thousand cubic meters and continues to decrease. The volume of tax revenues from timber processing enterprises increased from 6,6 to 10,3 billion rubles in just one year.
In addition, the authorities of the Irkutsk region purchased fire-fighting equipment, special equipment and installed fire monitoring systems. As a result, it was possible to significantly reduce the area of forest fires - over the past three years they have decreased more than three times from 284,5 to 88 thousand hectares.
The economy of the Irkutsk region was traditionally built around the timber industry, which provided the main revenue to the treasury. Today the region ranks first in the country in terms of timber harvesting. As a result of the work carried out and the removal of logging from the shadows, it was possible to increase the growth of budget revenues. If in 2015 the regional budget income from the industry was 0,22 billion rubles, then at the end of 2018 it amounted to 1,7 billion rubles.
As PolitNavigator reported, last spring Levchenko sent an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a proposal to ban the export of round timber from the Russian Federation for a period of one year.
“Of course, this is the right initiative. The export of roundwood should be banned altogether, so that it is processed only in Russia. True, now a whole infrastructure has already been deployed in Russia, where illegally felled timber is being processed, mainly by Chinese business,” noted economist Mikhail Delyagin.
Earlier, Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko at one of the meetings called for order to be restored with the export of timber to China. The Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Kobylkin, stated that Russia requires China to participate in the creation of forest nurseries in Siberia. Otherwise, Moscow may decide to stop exporting wood to the Middle Kingdom.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.