Have you ever thought of moving to live in the Far North of our country? If so, then most likely this was due to the so-called northern allowances, which are provided to every citizen of Russia officially working in the Far Eastern region. But what is their sum? And which region of Russia is northern? Let's find out.
Far North Regions
At the end of 2016, the Government of our country issued a decree defining a change in the list of regions belonging to the Far North. Moreover, the document had a serious resonance in society and even caused a number of unrest because the list of the Northern regions of Russia underwent quite substantial transformations.
It is worth noting that the government decree that we noted defines transformations only in the procedures for subsidizing and delivering goods to these regions. The changes made are primarily associated with an improvement in the road transport situation near a number of entities and an increase in the degree of their accessibility to commodity deliveries.
It is important that this list is not used for calculating northern surcharges, calculating vacation days and other preferential indicators.
Remained on the list
Thirteen Russian entities have retained their status, the most revealing examples among them are:
- Magadan, Sakhalin, Tomsk, Arkhangelsk, Tyumen, Irkutsk regions;
- Chukotka and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Chukostky, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts);
- Jewish Autonomous Region;
- Republic of Altai;
- Kamchatka, Primorsky Territory.
Excluded from the list
Examples of reduced regions are:
- Perm, Transbaikal, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk Territories;
- Amur region;
- Ugra (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug);
- Republic of Karelia and Buryatia.
Added to list
The list of smaller northern settlements (including the list of cities in the northern regions of Russia) included:
- settlements of the Murmansk region;
- settlements of the republics of Sakha, Tuva, Komi.
List No. 12
The coefficient of the northern premium for the regions of Russia is set in accordance with the list of territories approved by the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union at number twelve. This document includes:
- Regions: Magadan, Murmansk, Tyumen (fully).
- Catalan district of the Irkutsk region.
- The Arkhangelsk region is partially, namely, the cities of Mirny and Severodvinsk (with adjacent territories), the districts of Pinezhsky, Leshukonsky, Mezensky.
- Sakhalin Oblast partially: Noglinsky, Kurilsky, Okhinsky, South- and North-Kurilsky districts and the city of Okha.
- The Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) is completely the northernmost region of Russia.
- The Komi Republic is partially: the cities of Pechora, Inta and Vorkuta with adjacent territories, the countryside of Ust-Lyzha, the districts of Pechora, Izhemsky, Ust-Tsilemsky, Usinsky.
- Such areas of Karelia as Kemsky, Belomorsky, Loukhsky, Kalevala.
- Part of the Republic of Tuva in the form of the Shinaan rural administrative territory.
- Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug completely.
- Ugra (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area) as part of the Berezovsky and Beloyarsky districts.
- Kamchatka Territory completely.
- The Khabarovsk Territory is partially, namely, the Okhotsk and Ayano-May districts.
- Krasnoyarsk Territory partially: Evenki and Taimyr AO; areas Turukhansky and North Yenisei; the cities of Norilsk and Igarka with surrounding territories.
- Absolutely all the Russian islands of the Arctic Ocean and the seas of its basin, in addition to this - the territory of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.
- Mongun-Taiginsky and Tojinsky areas.
- City of Kostomuksha.
The size of the northern allowance
People working in the regions of the Far North are entitled to special financial support from the state - percentage premiums in the Russian region. They are usually called the northern allowances. Due to this factor, the cities of the northern regions of Russia are actively inhabited by young people from the least prosperous constituent entities of the Russian Federation, who are striving in some way to earn a living. The size of the northern allowances is calculated as a percentage. According to the law, interest premiums primarily depend on the area where work is carried out in the northern regions of Russia, as well as on seniority. This type of salary increases are calculated, not taking into account the district coefficient.
Here are some examples of the northern allowances for the regions of Russia 2017-2018.
The islands of the Arctic Ocean (and adjacent seas) are entitled to the largest allowance of one hundred percent and equal to double wages. The most “extra” regions are also the Republic of Yakutia, Chukotka, the Kuril Islands and the Commander Islands.
The lowest allowance is equal to thirty percent of wages. It is legally approved in the territories of Chita, the Republic of Khakassia, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region, a significant part of the Primorsky Region and some other regions of the Russian Federation. In addition to the indicated areas, this category includes administrative centers and border villages located no more than thirty kilometers from the state border.
North Development Strategy
The main strategic goal in the development of the Baikal and Far Eastern regions is the geopolitical task of the government of the Russian Federation, which is based on the issue of securing citizens living in the northern regions in this territory. This plan is planned to be implemented through the creation of a developed market economic system and comfortable living conditions in the Far North, state policy regarding the northern regions of Russia, among other things, is aimed at achieving a real average Russian standard of living and social and economic development of the region.
In order for this goal to be finally achieved, one cannot avoid solving the problems associated with the development of the social and economic spheres of the Far Eastern region. In order to ensure a real rather than artificial solution to this problem, the coefficient of the northern premium for the regions of Russia was approved. This is somewhat lower, and now we will try to more clearly define a number of priority tasks of state policy that need to be solved in terms of the territories of the Baikal region and the Far East:
- Providing normal conditions and an appropriate level of promising and progressive specialization of the development economy of the northern regions of Russia. The implementation of this task is already being actively carried out by attracting natural resource, scientific, industrial and human potential within the framework of sectoral federal strategies for full-scale development, as well as strategic development in the socio-economic sphere and in the programs of large companies.
- Determination of stable positions of the resettlement system with reliance on areas of faster growth of the economy of the Far East region, in which the formation of a comfortable living environment is possible.
- Establishment of reduced barriers for the effective integration of the northern regions of Russia into a network composed of leading federal entities.As part of this task, one should also mention such an internal political problem as increasing the competitive ability of the products of the North in accordance with the specialization of the regional economy by drawing up a proper regulatory framework, which, in turn, is responsible for determining the conditions of customs, budget, tax and pricing policies in Far Eastern region.
- Achieving a normal level of population and increasing labor resources, without which it is not possible to effectively solve the economic problems of the North of the Russian Federation and to improve the level of human capital.
- Maintaining and maintaining the lifestyle of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, the Far East and the North in accordance with their historical traditions.
Development scenario
The basis of state policy regarding the development of regions of the Far North is the Concept of long-term (until 2020) development of the Russian Federation in the socio-economic sphere. The development strategy is based on the maximum use of the advantages of the northern regions and their economies in market competition, the transit, natural and resource potential of these territories, the constant and stable increase in export supplies of competitive products, and modernization in the field of transport and road infrastructure.
Today, it is not only assumed, but also actively introduced a program to remove restrictions in inertial development, based on the realization of the most extensive competitive potential of industrial sectors of the Far North. They usually include agriculture and fisheries, forestry, electricity and transport. Qualitative transformations in the economic structure of the region, of course, will be promoted by the course towards the development of currently existing and opening of new industries, the use of innovative technologies on a large scale.
In addition, the full or partial realization of the potential of areas of priority economic development, as well as the formation of the most comfortable living conditions for the population of the North, become the primary tasks of the development of the Baikal and Far Eastern regions.
We outline the basic points of the development plan for the North of Russia:
- Modernization of social infrastructure, which invariably includes such areas of public life and areas of social policy as health and education, social protection and social culture, sports and the physical culture of the individual, and the housing sector. Their improvement is able to fully ensure the formation of comfortable living conditions in the northern regions.
- Modernization of the infrastructure sectors of the Far North regions, the main directions of which are overcoming the greatest possible number of infrastructural restrictions that impede the development of the region’s economy, and creating conditions conducive to accelerated economic development of the North.
- Comprehensive modernization of production facilities and their full-scale technological upgrade.
- The development of newly created economic sectors that contribute to the provision of advanced processing of raw materials, as well as the utilization of the advantages to the greatest possible extent in terms of geography and natural resources.
- Accelerated development of institutions of an economic structure that protect the rights of owners and the institution of property in general, increase the competitiveness of markets and the competitiveness of enterprises, reduce the risks of entrepreneurs and risks in the field of investment in production, as well as overcome administrative barriers, comprehensive development of partnership between the state and private entrepreneurship, improve quality the provision of public services.
- Ensuring the development of innovative enterprises responsible for servicing development projects in the field of high technologies through additional investments. Such projects include the space sector, shipbuilding, aircraft building and helicopter engineering, energy innovative projects. It is important that these enterprises occupy their own niche in the Russian commodity market through the use of the so-called “dual technologies”.
The "dual technology" include:
- Formation and further development of the activity of local technology parks and innovative production centers with an orientation towards the creation, first of all, of completely new products.
- Formation and further development of scientific and educational centers through technological and marketing research in accordance with a chain that includes idea, technology, product and service as successive links.
Actually, the implementation of the basic plan for the development of the northern region will ensure the stable growth of the GRP (gross regional product) of the subjects of the Baikal and Far Eastern regions, and this will certainly happen at a higher pace than the economic progress of other Russian regions. It is promised that until 2025, the rate of constant growth of the GRP of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation located within the Far North will become even greater than the rate of increase in gross domestic product throughout the Russian Federation. The promised excess figures are more than half a percentage point for the annual period.
Significance for the population
Thus, we can safely conclude that the achievement of priority tasks in the field of development of the northern regions of Russia will lead to an inevitable significant increase in the average living standard of the population. Today, the proportion of the total population of the Baikal and Far Eastern regions, whose income is below the subsistence level defined in the Russian Federation, is 24.5 percent. If the development scenario, which the state is set to, is fully realized, then this figure will be reduced by more than two times - to 9.6 percentage points.
Finally
As a small result, one cannot fail to say that today the regions of the Far North, included in the list of northern regions of Russia, are a large unrealized potential of the Russian Federation. With the proper level of their development, the subjects of the North in the future will be able to bring real income not only to their population, but also to the state budget of Russia.