LENINGRAD OBLAST
Summary Basic information

Summary

Text by: Stanislav Tkachenko (et al.)
St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of International Relations,
October 2001

Leningrad region was established as territorial unit of the USSR on August 1, 1927. Currently territory of the region is 83 900 square kilometers and population is 1,676 million with rather high for the Russian Federation share of urban population - 66,1%. The territory of the region is divided into 17 districts with 29 cities and towns and about 240 village administrations.

The Leningrad region (Governor Valery Serdyukov) is among few regions of Russian Federation, which have common border with a European Union member-state - Finland. The region as well has border with an EU applicant member (Estonia) and four Russian regions (Novgorod, Pskov and Vologda regions, and the Karelian Republic).

The Charter of Leningrad region was approved by the Legislative Assembly of the region on October 27th, 1994 and modernized several times after that (the latest version is of June 27th, 2001). The Chairman of the Legislative Assembly is Vitaly Klimov. One of the reasons of changes in the Charter is achieving of correspondence between federal legislation and regional. The control over implementation of federal legislation in the Leningrad region is the responsibility of the Chief Federal Inspector in the region. Up to September 2001 Andrey Stepanov was in this position before he was appointed as the Representative of the President of Russia in the Kaliningrad region.

The region due to an active policy of its Administration is among the national leaders in attracting foreign direct investments. Such well-known companies as "Ford Motors", "Philip Morris", and "Kraft" have moved into the region their production is oriented on the growing Russian internal market as well as on export to European countries and member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Due to good location on the borders of Russian Federation and developed transportation system, the region has a quickly growing economy. Industrial growth in the region in 2000 was fantastic - about 127%. At the first half of 2001 industrial growth was lower (112%) but still among the highest in the Russian Federation. There is clear competition between Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region to attract Russian and foreign capitals into their economies, and during previous two years Leningrad region was very successful in inviting leading companies ofrom all major sectors of economy (oil-refinery, aluminium, sea-ports construction in Ust-Luga and Primorsk, huge transport projects).

Due to significant industrial growth the region has in 2000-2001 for the first time in post-Soviet history a non-deficit budget. The control of expenses from the regional budget is the responsibility of the Chamber of Control and Audit of the Leningrad region (the Head - Vladimir Semenov).

The structure of the government of Leningrad region standard for any Russian region. There are 9 members of the Government of Leningrad region. It has the Governor (Valery Serdyukov), First Vice-Governor (Vladimir Kirillov) and seven Vice-Governors, responsible for all spheres of economic, social and cultural life as well as for international cooperation.

The Government of Leninrgad region is founder and owner of the leading regional newspaper Vesti (www.vesty.spb.ru) and TV company LOT, which has several hours every day on the leading regional TV channel "Petersburg" - Channel 5. The regional authorities as well as some municipalities have their sites on the internet (the most important is www.lenobl.ru, which has both Russian and English language versions).

The basic sectors of industry in Leningrad region are: production of electricity, oil-refinery, machine-building, pulp and paper industry, food and textile industries, chemical industry). In a few years the region will play a very significant role in transit of Russian energy and raw materials to foreign markets as well as in imports to Russia.

Agriculture is a very important sector of the regional economy. According to estimations of Russian government, the region's agriculture is among the most productive in Russian Federation, especially in the sector of diary products.

Leningrad region has signed agreements on cooperation with many regions in CIS and European countries and the role of foreign economic relations is consistently growing. Playin a very important role in the promotion of economic interests in the region is the Committee on Foreign Economic and International Relations (Head - Mr. Sergey Naryshkin).