The federal government is preparing to switch to centralized planning for regional development. In February, a Spatial Development Concept of Russia will be submitted to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov, and a specialized governmental research institute will be set up. Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev explained the proposed scheme does not imply revival of the Soviet State Planning Committee (Gosplan), but meets interests of both the central leadership and the regional leaders.

- Cabinet members are summarizing 2003 results. You joined the federal government in May last year. How can you asses this period of your work?
- It is yet too early to summarize the winter period. The heating season is presently within planned parameters. There are some failures, but that's no wonder. We all know in what state engineering services are. How can a person feeling 60% ill interact with the surrounding healthy world? The technical situation in public utilities sector has changed little. However, the situation has improved in terms of management and administrative control, and federal funding has played its role.
- Whose initiative was it and what it is all about specifically?
- This idea has long been in the air... There was a general settlement scheme in the Soviet Union. The new Russian government approved this scheme in 1994, but it was not further developed.
The program was just about population migration. Along with and in connection with migration, there is a need to determine other lines, too: transportation, industry, construction of ports, and development of mineral resources. However, these issues should not be settled separately, by a regional or sector principle, but comprehensively, which a general plan for spatial development actually enables.
For a long time, unsolved problems linked to the macroeconomic situation and reinforcement of the hierarchy of power prevented from taking up such matters. There is presently a good foundation to raise planning to a new level.
- What you are talking about is very much like the State Planning Committee system in the Soviet times...
- Gosplan developed the territory using administratively compulsory methods. As a result, instead of cotton production Middle Asia got industrial facilities which were alien to the region. Remarkably, the European community is also developing its own spatial development scheme. EU states that have their own budgets and economic plans have realized that common success requires their linking their territorial interests to general development.
The government (let's take a simple example) of a nation expects that a road it is building to the border with a neighboring state will not stop, but it will be continued. Otherwise, there will be losses and lost benefit for both parties. In Russia regional economic planning is done according to the "patchwork quilt principle." Each of the 89 regions has its own development plan. There are strategies for individual sectors: energy, transportation, communications. But these plans are not linked, and they do not interact with each other; they are not united by common national tasks. As a result, there are huge gaps in the level of regional welfare. A very poor territory can be near a successful one.
 Only government can link territorial development to strategic government tasks for the entire nation, creating a sort of spatial frame on which economic growth points will be outlined as priority national projects.
- How is it assumed to be carried out?
- Sure enough, this job is not for one year. For a start, it is planned to establish a governmental Spatial Development Institute. It will not replace active government structures, but it will provide expertise for the Economic Development and Trade Ministry and other planning ministries. The institute will invite well-known scientists and scientific professionals from the regions. Proceeding from analytical materials, they will be working out a comprehensive national development program.
- The regional leaders might view such plans by the government as an attempt to reduce their authority, and a step towards even greater centralization of political power.
- On the contrary, the governors view this idea positively. I talked to the heads of a lot of territories, we held a mass of roundtables and we decided this scheme is the most realistic. The governors are competent people willing to see their regions thrive. In seeking this, every leader has to know what will be going on in the neighboring area and whether his or her development plan is in line with the neighbors' plans and federal tasks.
- It turns out the regions are incapable of independent development?
- It turns out so because there is no centralized system for long-term strategic planning that would draw attention to territories' needs. For example, a bridge across Volga has been under construction for decades in the construction for decades in the Ulyanovsk region. The region is not able to complete it on its own. Its neighbors are busy with their own problems. Only the federal government can determine the importance and priority of this project and draw attention to it from other regions and business.
Some believe that business will decide on everything by itself and the state should not interfere. If business feels the state is interested in the project and is prepared to provide infrastructural conditions, it invests more readily. Only the state can decided in what sequence mineral resources deposits should be developed and in what sequence to build roads. Or in which of the two Primorye (Maritime) regions it is more profitable to build a port from the standpoint of federal, not just territorial interests. Federal tasks should always be more important, but they should not infringe on territories' interests. This is the key difference of the spatial development scheme from Soviet Gosplan.
- That is, all decisions within the scope of the general development plan will be based on a complete consensus between the federal center and the regions.
- Of course, on a complete consensus is impossible. The former Yakut leadership did not want to build a railroad for their own considerations. However, from the standpoint of federal interests, a rail segment from Aldan to the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAR) is essential. It will cut northern delivery costs and ensure thick traffic along the BAR, while presently it is loaded just 20% because there are no transverse railroads.
Using our beneficial geographic position, we should create a strong transit superpower developing huge territories along rail and motor roads and thus solve industrial development and employment problems in depressive regions. We need again make territories past the Urals attractive for work and life, while mass migration is underway from there to western regions. We should fight the permanent depression in the Far East and Transbaikalia that are so rich in natural resources.
We should be more active in developing the Chukot Peninsula .Quite near, across the Bering Strait there is Alaska . In future, these territories can realistically be connected by a tunnel, thus uniting the two continents.Lack of money which it is a custom to refer to when largescale projects are discussed is not the main problem. They say, a fool, too, could handle this with money. For example, a decision was made to develop Elga coal deposits.
They started building a road there, built 40 kilometers of it, and stopped - it turned out to be too expensive. As a result, the deposits are not being developed. Maybe it would have been better to leave the Elga deposits alone for the time being, choosing something closer and thus saving money? Determining tasks and plans for a specific sector and specific territory is only possible when one has a general picture for the entire country and can link all issues - migration, transportation, industrial construction, and development of deposits - in a general development scheme. Otherwise, we will continue to exist by the "patch-work quilt" principle.

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