Russia decides to stop the degradation of housing and communal services / Economy / Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Now even more funds are needed to upgrade utility networks
President Vladimir Putin will supply a reserve stock of last year’s housing commissioning and increase the volume of mortgage loans by 2.5 trillion rubles. Photo from www.kremlin.ru
Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, responsible for construction and housing and communal services, announced a change in the mechanisms for financing construction and utility statistics in the Russian Federation back in mid-February. According to him, “without a systematic solution, it will be difficult to make a breakthrough in his housing and communal services industry.” The presidium of the State Council, which took place on Tuesday, gathered to discuss the decisions. In order to modernize housing and communal services, it is necessary to change 5% of networks annually. 150 billion rubles will be allocated for this purpose. for four years. But now there are proposals to finance the administration longer and more generously. A lot has changed since February.
Probability of realizing the colossal potential of the construction complex.
This was announced by the Presidium of the State Council on Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin has proposed to extend until 2030 the national project “Housing and urban environment”.
One of the expected future work is to increase the affordability of housing. “According to polls, more than 65% of Russians would like to improve their living conditions,” Putin said and further elaborated: “Unfortunately, we still lag behind many countries, including our neighbours.” “In general, the corresponding volume of housing consumption this year is not lower than last year, and the growth of the mortgage portfolio is not less than 2.5 trillion rubles,” the president put, recalling that in 2021, despite the difficult situation pandemic, our builders have worked without any exaggeration shock”: 92.6 million square meters were put into operation. m.
Another specific task is to complete the construction of previously frozen facilities in stages over one and a half to two years. “The situation with unfinished buildings needs, of course, to be changed, because this is not only, as they say, buried money that has not yielded results. the alleged inconveniences and problems for citizens that have been frozen for years at the construction site do not adorn the appearance of cities and towns,” they noted.
The situation on construction in connection with the sanctions became more complicated, Putin returned. It is necessary not to slow down the pace of development and support domestic producers of building materials: “Our task is to bring their share in our market to 95%.”
Another aspect is emergency houses. “We have everything we need to speed up the resettlement of emergency housing, the renewal of the country’s housing stock. “We need to set the tasks set here, naturally, reasonable and budgetary opportunities, and the very resource of the construction industry,” Putin said.
As Natalya Churkina, the Institute for the Complex of Scientific Research, told NG, “in Russia, the annual frequency of emergency housing is repeated – in particular, from 15.2 million square meters. m in 2015 to 19.6 million sq. m in 2020. “At the same time, not even in the emergency fund there is a part of the communal loss in our country that is now worn out,” the expert clarified.
By the way, it was the housing and communal services problem that arose because of the topic of this meeting of the Presidium of the State Council. Even before the special operation, in mid-February, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said in the State Duma that he had asked the president to hold a presidium of the State Council on housing and communal services. Estimated for the case when at least 5% of utility networks in the country need to be changed annually. “It will be difficult to make a breakthrough in this industry without a systemic solution for housing and communal services,” Khusnullin explained.
At the same time, half a month before the planned, in January 2022, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin had already joined the financing of housing and communal services from the National Welfare Fund: in 2022, 20 billion rubles should be allocated for this purpose8, and in just four years – up to 150 billion rubles . It is expected that with these funds it will be possible to finance up to 80% of the costs. The funds will be provided for up to 25 years at a preferential rate of 3% per annum.
“The total wear and tear of networks is over 40% … the possibility of inefficiency and losses that ultimately fall on the enterprise, on the citizens,” he made his thesis to the presidium of the State Council of Putin, which he had already voiced at the St. Petersburg Foreign Economic Forum (SPIEF).
“According to Rosstat data for 2021, about 44% of the length of the water supply network needs to be replaced,” Churkina told NG. – At the beginning of the 2000s, it was even much lower – less than 32%.
For various kinds of publicly useful information. “The share of worn-out sewer networks is now almost 45% against 28% in 2000; of heat and steam networks of the heat supply system – 30% against 16% in 2000, – Churkina returned. – As a result of testing the efficiency of utility systems. If in 2000 the loss of profit in shares, for example, was 7.2%, then last year it was already 12.5%. The growth of losses to the shifting of costs to consumers and consumption costs, the attention of the expert.
As the president said on Tuesday, we do not report some changes in the status of the quality of housing and communal services “as long as all this economy visits on the previous, dilapidated infrastructure.” That is why they were asked at the SPIEF to implement a comprehensive program for the renovation of housing and communal services. “Its main essence is to consolidate, attract solid investments: their volume must be increased many times over. At the same time, everything that is necessary to replace worn-out networks has been produced in the country: metal, machinery, domestic equipment and materials,” Putin explained.
And almost immediately, the head of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, who occupies the State Council commission on the scale of construction and housing and communal services, proposed, given the high capital intensity, to increase the duration of the program from 5 to 10 years. “And at least 150 billion rubles have been allocated for subsequent years, and at least 300 billion rubles for subsequent years. a year,” he added. According to him, when developing a program, it is necessary to include a detailed inventory of public utility.
Every problem associated with increasing the volume of construction using domestic materials, to the resettlement of dilapidated housing and the improvement of living conditions, rests on the problem of financing.
For example, as Marat Khusnullin said on Tuesday, “the implementation of large-scale plans is impossible without the development of the building materials industry, the total demand for building materials is about 80 trillion rubles. for seven years.” Or another example: the need to finance work to replace utility networks in the country is estimated at 4.5 trillion rubles.
Due to the complicated economic situation and the rise in price of materials, it is possible to estimate the lack of investment in the construction industry and housing and communal services at 20% or more, follows from the commentary of Associate Professor of the Russian University of Economics. G.V. Plekhanov Maria Ermilova. “Depends on what disease the subject is in,” she explained. “Certainly, construction is a driver of economic development. Therefore, investing in it is extremely important. Here, there can be both assistance from the state to developers and contractors, and in relation to the motivation of these entities through various benefits, says Ermilova. – Programs are needed to replace worn-out communications by region. Too much stretched. Depreciation in especially subsidized regions is significant.” According to her, the state is able to support management, but beyond that it cannot help investors. “If we talk about project financing as one of the options for financing housing construction, then in the first quarter of 2022, the current debt of developers reaches more than 3 trillion rubles, the amount of credit limits is almost 8 trillion rubles,” said the director of the research and consulting center of the State -private events and investment management of the Institute of Construction of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Nadezhda Kulakova. And in the housing and communal services market, according to a rather narrow range of application given by the expert due to specifics: “This is recognition that requires the quality of high-quality training, not only managerial, but also engineering qualifications against the background of limited opportunities to withdraw excess profits due to regulatory restrictions.” According to Kulakova, “the annual volume of housing and communal services is 3 trillion rubles, and the annual volume of investment obligations under concessions concluded in this area, on average over the past three years, is about 70–80 billion rubles.” Obviously, the investment potential of the players. But the housing and communal services sector, according to the expert, considers its support for the Russian economy to be the most conservative, the main reason for the slow restructuring is the availability of sufficient innovations. The digitalization of housing and communal services, as expected by Kulakov, “will reduce the budget, reduce the cost of maintaining real estate.”