Members of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Property and Land Relations approved a bill on State Support for Entrepreneurial Activities in the Russian Federation's Arctic Zone.

Submitted by the Government, the document sets forth the relevant legalities, the procedure for entrepreneurial activities and state support measures in the Russian Arctic. And the Government will determine national Arctic shelf sectors where state support measures will be applied.

To date, the Russian Arctic includes ground territories of the Murmansk Region, the Nenets, Chukotka and Yamal-Nenets autonomous areas, some sections of the Karelia, Komi, Sakha (Yakutia) republics, the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Arkhangelsk Region, adjacent sea sectors, the territorial sea and the continental Arctic shelf of the Russian Federation.

Commercial organizations and self-employed business people wishing to implement new investment projects worth at least ten million rubles each can become Arctic zone residents. This status allows them to obtain various tax and non-tax preferences, including federal, regional and local tax breaks. The free customs zone's procedures can also apply to them.

"My colleagues and I are now debating ‘entrance ticket' prices which now total ten million rubles. But we receive many proposals on differentiated prices, so that this ‘entrance ticket' would cost slightly less, between one million and three million rubles," Deputy Minister for the Development of Russia's Far East Pavel Volkov said.

He also noted that the procedure for obtaining resident status would resemble a similar procedure used for priority development areas and the free port of Vladivostok. "The measures are just about the same, including various business support measures, customs-and-tariffs regulation, control-and-oversight activities and all mechanisms now wielded by our ministry," Volkov added.