(Source: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki)

By the order of the President the creation of new special economic zones (SEZ) in Russia stops, at the same time 10 sites will be closed, and all other working zones will be given to the regions. This was written by “Kommersant” on Thursday, June 9 with a reference to inter-departmental correspondence. Such a reaction of the Kremlin was caused by the report of the Head of Control Directorate of the President Konstantin Chuichenko.

It states that 186 billion roubles have been spent on 33 special economic zones since 2006, 24 billion of them have not been used, and tax and customs payments from these zones amounted to 40 billion roubles during this period. In early April the Ministry of Finance outlined the conditions under which it was ready to allocate money for the development of regions. Thus, subjects will be able to receive compensation of the cost of infrastructure creation of only successful special economic zones, in particular, of those where the volume of private investment was at least three times higher than the size of budget injections.

The checks of special economic zones that led to presidential orders have been caused by complaints of the activists of the Popular Front to the President in November 2015. The state auditors questioned all the history of existence of special economic zones, for this purpose a total of 18 thousand jobs were created with the expenditures of more than 10 million roubles for one job.

The April report of the Accounting Chamber (AC) expressed the need to improve the mechanism of creation, development and management of special economic zones, including the requirements to feasibility of creation, earning capacity, profitability and payback period. According to the data of AC, the regions apply for too large territories and do not have time to develop them.