Vladivostok ‘free port’ will be a centre for logistics, ship repairs, manufacturing, export-oriented and import-substituting industries and agriculture, Promorsky Krai’s Governor Sergey Nekhaev has announced. Vladivstok will be Russia’s first beneficiary of ‘free port’ status and will also enjoy a relaxation of visa regulations, customs procedures and, in the case of some goods, a tariff-free regime. The concept of free ports is part of the Kremlin’s drive to attract overseas trade to Russia’s Far East and to stimulate its economy. “Russia has the potential to become major power in the Asia-Pacific region,” President Putin said last December. According to figures released by the Russian Association of Commercial Seaports last year, Russia’s Far Eastern ports handled 135.5 m tonnes of cargo in the first 10 months of 2014, – about a quarter of the entire country’s total.
Vladivostok ‘free port’ to be operational by 2016
Vladivostok commercial port
Source: Siberian Times