Chechnya: news | arguments | facts
14 April 2006 Chechen Businessman Produces Saw-Timber in Komi
Mamed Yusupov, Man of the Year-2004 in Chechnya is engaged in the selling of building materials. His company Yusupof Products is one of the first companies to start selling building material trade.
When many other businessmen started to do the same business M. Yusupov began to manufacture saw-timber, trimmed and non-trimmed boards. Yusupov bought a timber industry enterprise in the Vladimir Region near Moscow 18 months ago. But he decided to focus on the northern republic of Komi where abundant forest and high quality timber. He organized a timber industry enterprise, Kazbek in Komi with the work force of 200 people. The enterprise processes timber materials for export.
When he planned to expand the production he appealed to Russian residents through the Moscow-based weekly Arguments and Facts to invest money in the enterprise.
In fact, when Mamed Yusupov started his business activity in Chechnya he took a similar step. In 2000 he urged the Chechen residents through the local television channel to invest money in a company selling building materials. Many people responded to his appeal and this made it possible for him to open the Yusupov Product Company. Later he returned all money to the investors with solid dividends.
The scale of work in Komi is significantly more. To expand the enterprise he needs about one billion rubles or about $35 million. This is the reason why he appealed to the residents of the country. He believes that these people get 35% profit and it will take five years to cover the projects outlay but investors could get dividends annually.
Mamed Yusupov has established good relations with the Komi authorities though they were cautious at the beginning. When the authorities were confident that he was not engaged in dangerous business and will create new jobs and the timber materials of the enterprise would be cheaper than others they agreed to work with him. In fact, the enterprise plans to help local schools, hospitals and socially vulnerable residents of the republic. Now the two sides work closely.
Mamed Yusupov receives money from those who have desire to participate in his business in 2006. His contact numbers: (8212) 24-99-86 in the republic of Komi and (8715) 22-22-68 in Gudermes, Chechnya.
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14 April 2006 Will Regional Newspapers Survive in Chechnya?
Almost all the regions in Chechnya have their own newspaper but whether they will continue to exist under the current budget difficulties is the question agitating the minds of people and which the republican national policy, press and information minister, Movsur Ibragimov has been asked to answer.
According to Mr. Ibragimov, in view of current acute budget deficit in Chechnya, the ministry has been pondering a gradual reduction in the number of newspapers that are funded by the republic.
But regional chief administrators have told the minister at a meeting that they are bent on keeping their newspapers, promising to look for alternative sources of financing them under regional budget headings. It was agreed that if regions can bear 80 per cent of the operational cost of newspaper publishing, the press and information ministry would make up the remaining 20 per cent.
But today the regions are managing with shoe-string budgets and if regional chief administrators cannot keep their promise, a reduction in the number of newspapers will become unavoidable and in all probability one inter-regional newspaper will be established in place of several, as happened some years ago and as it is done in the mountain parts of Chechnya, where Shatoisk and Itum-Kalinsk regions are running a joint newspaper.
The northern regions will have to create a single newspaper to place the current 3: Terskaya Pravda, Terskaya Nova and Preterechny, while Sunzhensky and Achxoi-Martan regions will get one paper in place of Sunzhi and Mashar.
Minister Ibrahimov has promised that workers to be laid off in a pruning exercise will not be left to their own devices, but will be absorbed by the ministry in other areas.
The literary magazine Gonch that has been publishing world classics in Chechen translation has been axed. But the magazines name has been retained to allow the Editor to continue publication minus state funding if he can find a sponsor.
Minister Ibrahimov hopes that the re-organization of regional newspapers can be avoided if the appropriate budget for effective functioning is passed in Chechnya, but agrees that the budget financing of newspaper publication is a temporary measure. When the situation in the republic stabilizes, all newspapers should become self-financing, declared Mr. Ibrahimov.
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13 April 2006 Sowing Time Underway
The sowing work in Chechnya is now in full swing. Remembering a saying that each spring day feeds a year, Chechen farmers are using each fine weather hour. Their efforts, however, are still quite complicated. There are seed grain shortages, fuel and lubricants are in short supply, but the chief problem they face is the run-down technical equipment.
Under an agreement with Volgograds Agromash holding agriculture tool producer, by the time of sowing work the republic received 24 VT-100 tractors, 12 MTZ-82 tractors and 20 PTS-4 trailers. Chechen farmers are satisfied with the tractors quality but believe they are too few and in-between. According to expert opinion from the Chechen Agriculture Ministry, the republic will require and additional 375 track-laying tractors, 1,340 units of land-tilling equipment, including 400 seeders and many more items.
To date, all the new agricultural implements have been acquired on the federal budget account. And the federal budget is still Chechen farmers best hope, since local agricultural producers are so far unable to shoulder the costs of paying for the equipment.
This year 82,000 hectares will be sown with spring crops. Rice paddies too will be expanded to 3,000 hectares. Rice is traditionally cultivated in Shelkovskoy and Gudermess regions. By comparison with the year before, more vegetables and sugar beet will be sown this year, although sugar beet seed supply in the republic is only enough to sow only 1.300 hectares, while the plan calls for sowing it on 3.500 hectares. Chechnya has sufficient supplies of only two crops oats and barley.
The republican Agriculture Ministry provides assurances that all needed sugar beet seeds will be supplied from other Russian regions and the sugar beet plots will not stay fallow, all the more so because a sugar-refining factory will be set in operation in Argun by the harvest time. Previously, sugar beet was dispatched for processing to the Stavropol region with part of the harvest getting lost and sugar content in the root reduced. With the construction of a new sugar beet processing factory in Chechnya,
cost-efficiency of the sugar beet industry will increase substantially.
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Issue 363
