Future Skolkovo Innovation Center can and should begin its work without waiting for completion of capital facilities construction. Such conclusion was reached at the meeting held at the Institute of Contemporary Development INSOR.
Most participants agreed that Skolkovo project can start living right now, before houses and research laboratories are built to the west of Moscow. To put this into practice, it is necessary that companies members of the project begin their local innovative activities, while in the Internet there will be formed a “virtual cluster” to provide constant information exchange.
Ilya Ponomarev, member of the State Duma and Adviser to the Skolkovo Foundation President, pointed out that “Skolkovo should not be isolated”, should not close on a fenced area. According to him, the main reason why first special economic zones in Russia became “closed objects”, were Customs facilities, demanding that all incoming products should be brought to one Customs office strictly. However, this problem can be solved in a more civilized way.
According to RunaPark Chairman Dmitry Chikhachev, Russia already has a lot of innovative projects, at least half of them launched in the regions. "There is no need to bring them to Skolkovo by all means at the early stages", - said Chikhachev. Other speakers supported the view that immediate concentration of resources in Skolkovo is unnecessary, since a lot of activities, including high technology work, are less expensive to perform in the province.
All the speakers recognized the value of the future Innograd - a place where people talented and successful in business and research could meet together for direct communication.
Participants also discussed main problems that Russian Innovation Centre Skolkovo will inevitably face in the near future, specifically tax and housing policy.
As pointed out by Oleg Alekseev from the Skolkovo Foundation, the State will encourage the work of the future center innovators providing them with facilities for value added tax and social taxes, customs facilities, as well as reduced on-site registration. In this regard, the supervisor of the Innovation Institute at the MIPT Yuri Ammosov immediately noticed that the planned benefits are too small to be attractive. According to Ammosov, in Silicon Valley innovators pay neither VAT, no social taxes.
Ammosov pointed out that Skolkovo must have its own tax inspection so that all the Innograd inhabitants can deal with it only. The same principle should be used with fire inspection, and all the other inspectors. This point of view was widely supported. However, other participants expressed the opinion that the members of the project remaining in their own regions still have to pay taxes at the place of residence; otherwise local authorities will be dissatisfied.
Oleg Alekseev as well as the other participants mentioned that not all the companies are that much interested in tax relief. The most famous of the world companies asked the Innograd founders about the concentration of highly skilled professionals in one place. “If there is a thousand of skilled IT-workers, we are in”, - promised to Alekseev one of the experts from the West.
Another important issue, according to participants, is housing. Most speakers expressed an opinion that innovators should rent houses in Skolkovo, perhaps on preferential terms, but without privatizing it. Existing Russian science towns were used as a negative example: all houses there are occupied by the descendants of the deceased scientists, not involved in research, and for new scientists, even if they come, there is no place to settle.
Yuri Ammosov, however, objected, saying: “Do you know a lot of families that will agree to live in a rented apartment, knowing that after work they will have to move out?”
In fact, this meeting at the Institute of Contemporary Development INSOR was first in a series of the bill public discussions for various target audiences. Such discussions will be held until further consideration of the document by the State Duma this autumn.
The bill was introduced in the lower house of Parliament by the President. On July 2 document was adopted at first reading.