Page 63 - RusRPTJun19

The least attractive regions will be allowed to offer the highest incentives, but there will be a lot of restrictions on how they can offer them. The most attractive regions will only be able to offer small tax discounts, but they will have the most flexibility to work out deals with potential investors.
Regions can offer discounts on income and real estate taxes, as well as exceptions to several laws on doing business across borders.
The bill would temporarily stop the creation of new economic zones at the beginning of 2020, in order to give MinFin a few years to
experiment with different types of economic zones.
6.2 Debt
Russian foreign debt increased slightly in the first quarter. The debt increase mainly concerned government debt to foreigners. Russia's foreign debt, which is mainly held by companies, banks and the state, remains significantly below the 2014 peak.
In mid-2014, the debt was about $733bn, but at the end of March 2019 it was about $468bn. Since the peak of 2014, both sanctions and weak economic development in Russia have reduced foreign debt largely due to debt repayments. The weak economic situation reduced Russia's foreign debt also in the context of the 2009 financial crisis, but then the debt level quickly recovered after the crisis broke out. The impact of sanctions is reflected, in particular, in the continued decline in foreign debt of Russian banks, as Russia's largest banks, incl. Sberbank and VTB do not receive new long-term funding from the EU and US.
The volume of external debt of the Russian Federation in 2018 decreased by $64.1bn and as of January 1, 2019 amounted to $454.0bn. External liabilities reduced all institutional sectors, but the largest contribution to the reduction of external debt was made by other sectors, whose debt decreased by $31.0bn.
63 RUSSIA Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com