Tatarstan capitalizes on its Muslim heritage

[Bengal_Tiger]

Republic capitalizes on its Muslim heritage


September 15, 2011
Nick Watson
The Muslim-majority region has proved to be an interesting investment destination for funds with Muslim shareholders or that are based in Muslim countries.




Although there has been much speculation about Muslim investors moving into Russia, the situation has been one of all talk and no action — until now.

Two Islamic funds have recently launched operations in the
 Muslim-majority Republic of 
Tatarstan. The first is the 
Malaysian private equity firm AmanahRaya Capital Group, which has launched several
projects the republic. In the 1990s, most foreign investors headed straight for Moscow. The game changed after 2000, however, and Russia’s regions have become the new frontier; Kazan caters to the 80 million Russians that live in the cities lining the Volga River.

“We bypassed Moscow and came to Kazan, as it offers the most attractive investment 
climate,” said Dato Ahmad Rodzi Pawanteh, AmanahRaya’s managing director.

The fund’s first project was the Kazan Halal hub, which imports halal meat and other products for the region’s Muslim majority. Once established, the fund financed the construction of a halal meat processing plant in Baltash, 62 miles from Kazan, where local producers can also bring their meat to be processed according to Islamic rules. The latest phase of the project set up an Islamic fund management company that will invest in halal-related
projects. The management company will also hold a pilgrimage fund to finance a Hajj for local residents.

“We have been very successful with this sort of fund in Malysia, and it was an obvious product to bring to Tatarstan,” said Pawanteh. “But we are also working with the local government to raise funds on a private equity basis to bring in foreign investment to the region.”

According to Pawanteh, the local government has been very active in promoting foreign investment in the region, and has taken a stake in these funds as a way of reassuring foreign investors that it is willing to share the risks with investors.

The second fund that recently established itself in Tatarstan is the Foras International Investment Company, which represents Saudi money and has launched a classic investment vehicle together with the newly established Tatarstan International Investment Company, or TIIC. The $50 million fund will focus on the
region’s strengths in bio-technology, nanotechnology and I.T. The company was inaugurated in June ; the founding investors have already contributed $10 million and are in the process of raising the balance.

“We are focused on the Volga region and the attractive investment climate the government has created here with tax breaks and incubators,” said Amizan bin Mohd Nor of Foras. “One of the most attractive elements in this region is the high level of science and engineering, especially in things like civil aviation.”

Kazan was known in the Soviet era as a center of learning, and its universities still churn out many of Russia’s best engineers. It is also home to a flourishing aviation industry as well as a burgeoning automotive sector.

“We have 20 projects in the pipeline, and 80 percent of them are brownfield that we will develop over the next three years,” said Nor. “But probably the most prospective are in the technical aviation sector.” Nor said he can’t reveal the details of the projects yet as they are still in negotiations, but that he is particularly excited by a project to make aviation rescue vehicles.

“The companies here are advanced, and the level of technology is as good as anything I have seen in Europe,” said Nor. “And the trouble with Europe is it is a highly saturated market. In Russia, we can easily find companies where we can really increase the value, with willing buyers in the Middle East and beyond.”

http://indrus.in/articles/2011/09/15...age_13003.html

Kazan A most beautiful Muslim City of Europe - YouTube

[Bengal_Tiger]

Hillary Clinton in Kazan - YouTube

Hilary Clinton visits Tatarstan's main mosque in the capital, Kazan.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Tatarstan’s high-tech transformation


September 14, 2011
Ben Aris
Tatarstan is setting an example for the rest of Russia by combining entrepreneurship with government support to create self-sustaining technoparks.



“Twenty-three percent of all traffic fines in Tatarstan are paid electronically,” said Nikolai Nikiforov, Tatarstan’s grinning 29-year-old minister of I.T. and communication, sitting in his office atop the glitzy glass skyscraper that forms the I.T. park in downtown Kazan.

Nikiforov is exuberant about his eGov program, which allows access to 25 types of government services - including paying taxes, scheduling weddings and obtaining a passport - via the Internet. “We lose hundreds of millions of man-hours a year on bureaucracy,” said Nikiforov.

In June, users of the eGov program completed a million transactions using the system , a four-fold increase from January. For the 48 percent of households without Internet access, touchscreen terminals across the city offer easy access to the system.

“We could have offered the contract for developing eGov to pricey foreign software engineers, but chose locals instead,” said Nikiforov. “Eighty percent of the system was developed right here, and now the companies are marketing their products in other parts of Russia.”

I.T. currently accounts for 3.5 percent of Tatarstan’s economy, but Nikiforov says the republic is aiming for 7-10 percent, like its peers in the developed world, by 2016. “The tools we have for this - technoparks, venture funds and universities - are nothing individually,” said Nikiforov. “ T hey are part of a single ecosystem we must develop 
systematically.”

Sergei Yushko, general director of a neighboring technopark called Idea, agrees. “We’ve existed for seven years,” he said, “and a day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t felt the complete backing of local authorities.” Idea was founded on the territory of an abandoned defense plant in 2004 with the aim of creating jobs in high-tech sectors of the economy. By providing two key services to local start-ups — cheap rent and sound business advice - the technopark “graduated” enough firms within three years to become self-sustaining; by 2007, its companies were paying enough taxes into the local budget to repay the start-up capital. “For the last four years, we’ve been independent of the regional budget, and this is important,” said Yushko. “Our experience proves technoparks are a viable model for economic development in Russia .”
In figures



3.5 %


of Tatarstan’s regional economy is based in information technology. The republic hopes to increase that amount to between 7 and 10 percent.

7 years


have gone by since the Idea technopark was established. The park is now financially independent of local authorities and regularly graduates new companies.

Yushko explains that most of the companies at Idea provide engineering services, software design or Web design. After three years, graduates of Idea have the option of leaving the territory of the technopark altogether, usually securing bank loans independently to acquire office space, or moving into its business park, where rent is no longer subsidized. There, neighbors will include the local R&D branches of international behemoths such as G.E., Honeywell and Siemens. “The foreign companies come first and foremost for the qualified personnel,” said Yushko.

“I’m a believer in the unpopular notion that we don’t need factories in Russia,” Yushko said. “Production will eventually be moved to where you have cheap labor, like China. Our advantage is people and their ideas.”


Gross regional product (GRP) growth has largely rebounded since the global economic crisis.

Still, that’s also one of the greatest challenges to high-tech companies in Tatarstan. “We want to build an ‘I.T. village’ outside Kazan based on the Skolkovo model in Moscow,” said Nikifirov, referring to Russia’s equivalent of Silicon Valley located in a village near the capital. “By our best estimates, we’ll need to house 20,000 I.T. specialists there to get this sector of the economy as large as we want it. Tatarstan currently has 5,000 such specialists. We’ll have to attract 15,000 from other regions of Russia.”

Thinking locally

In another part of Kazan, an industrial park called Khimgrad became the first such project in Russia to be internationally certified by representatives of Ernst & Young and Knight Frank. Khimgrad focuses on polymer and chemical production and, unlike the technoparks, it seeks to take advantage of underdeveloped raw materials in Tatarstan. “We produce a plethora of polymers in Tatarstan, but these are typically exported and then re-imported with much added value,” said the park’s manager, Airat Gizzatullin. “At Khimgrad, we don’t work with technologies of global or even national significance; we’re just focused on modernizing the local economy and establishing efficient supply chains.”

Khimgrad offers fully equipped facilities, business solutions and tax breaks to investors - both Russian and foreign - willing to set up production. “Only a complete ecosystem can structurally change Russia’s economy on the scale that our country’s leadership talks about,” said Nikiforov. “That’s what we’re trying to do in Tatarstan, and we began earlier than other regions.”

But a lot of work remains to be done. “When we asked investors five years ago what we needed to do for them to come, they said, ‘Build a new airport!’ It was a funny response, but carried a lot of truth.” Today, a sign hangs over the shoddy building that services both domestic and international flights to Kazan: “New terminal to be completed in 4th quarter of 2011.”

http://rbth.ru/articles/2011/09/14/t...ion_13410.html

Tatarstan: model for religious tolerance - YouTube

Wayfarer: Tatarstan - YouTube

From 8.05 mins you can see the Kazan mosque which was built with modern technology include satellite positioning to ensure the mosque faced Mecca properly.