I. Metshin: "We must be bold to imagine what Kazan in 2030 will be"

Transcript of the TV program "Theme" at "Ether" channel with the participation of the Mayor of Kazan:

Moderator: "Theme" continues the ether. Alexey Kuleshov is in the studio, hello! Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin is the guest of the studio today. Ilsur Raisovich, good evening!

Ilsur Metshin: Good evening!

A.K .: Ilsur Raisovich will answer the questions that you sent before the beginning of the program. You can also call in a live broadcast. Ilsur Raisovich, main theme now is, probably, the ongoing economic crisis. Everything depends from economy. In this regard, the first question is: how Kazan is going through these difficult times, and what awaits us in the future, the most important thing?

I.M .: What can we expect? Hopefully, a bright future, a happy future. Speaking about Kazan, Kazan economy - we are becoming more and more post-industrial city, which develops non-productive sphere, the same tourism and services. But our major industries remain the basis and foundation of our economy.

We finished 2015. Now we get almost all the major figures on the economy, which we could achieve over the past year. There are different situations, but in general, the margin allowed working quite well. There is drop in production in individual enterprises, but the chemistry, petro chemistry were able to show good results. In general, there is decline in production, and crisis affected the capital as the rest of Tatarstan, as an integral part of the Russian Federation and the international community, of course. But a margin of safety - thanks to the long-term contracts, which there are at "Kazanorgsintez", "Nafis Cosmetics" and "KOMZ", and our defense industry, the helicopter association, "KAPO" - allows us to maintain our position and boldly look to the future, even in these turbulent times. But we are realists, including myself. Prices are rising and, therefore, it is not necessary to say that all is well. We feel the crisis.

A.K .: Ilsur Raisovich! I would just talk about prices. Because look, just the day before, on March 1, price of school meals have been risen. Today carriers have published a letter, in which they want to increase the cost of public transport up to 28 rubles.

I.M .: If you please, Alexei, we  will return to the issue of prices later. Still, I would like to conclude on the economy, in what is being done in the city, and what we intend to do.

As I said, if we are talking about industrial plants, thanks to that systematic work and the injections in technology, new production, new equipment before the devaluation of the ruble, our industrial giants look in the future confidently enough. They grow the volume of production and revenue increases. The same "Kazanorgsintez" today published statements, and we hear that they have tripled the profit, that pleases us, of course.

Now is an important time to help small and medium businesses. Because they account one-third of employed working-age population, a third of the gross territorial product and almost 20% of taxes of the city. In this regard in the dialogue with small and medium-sized businesses we have developed an unprecedented program. It works since 2007. But this year we reviewed its options in terms of the interest rate subsidies. By the way, over the year 380 enterprises have received preferential loans by 1 billion 80 million rubles. We have considered the possibility of increasing subsidies to 10%. We have increased the amount of the loan from 5 to 10 million and identified those priority sectors of our municipal services, which are expected to grow in the near future. Again, this applies to tourism, the service sector, for example, souvenirs, hospitality, catering and so on.

We talked about this in detail at our meeting in the framework of the Council for Entrepreneurship and reported on the session. And now we are in dialogue. We say that more than 100 premises, which are currently not involved in economic circulation, will be donated to two years with zero rent to our entrepreneurs.