Business capital of Russia entered the third millennium with confidence and optimism. You just have to go down to the multilevel underground labyrinth of shops on the Manezh Square and you feel like you are in London, New York, Paris or Tokyo.

Muscovites have always been considered as energetic and reliable business partners. Moscow manufacturers of the beginning of the XX century Smirnov and Morozov,
merchants Eliseev and Tretyakov were famous for their enterprise, abilities to organize highly profitable production. The present Pleads of “Luzkov’s sons” – bankers, constructors, businessmen are getting strength and they are not inferior in scale and resourcefulness to the previous generations.

Moscow is a huge megapolice. Labour reserves of the city exceed 6 million people. About three million people are engaged in private sector that is more than in public sector; one third of working Muscovites are engaged in small business. Moscow is also a huge town-planning complex (the square of the capital is 994 km2 , population exceeds 8.6 million people). New General Plan of Moscow development till 2020 corresponds with the further harmonic constructing. According to this plan and world practice the construction activity in some districts is being restrained, in others is being encouraged. Natural and historical areas relate to the first group. First of all, it is the center of Moscow and green tracts, which make Moscow megapolice one of the first in vegetation among the world capitals. City administration has increased the fee from the enterprises, which pollute the environment in order to improve ecological situation in the city. These fees are being accumulated in the ecological fund, which finance the ecological actions.

At the same time the investors receive a carte-blanche for the construction of such new for Moscow areas of business activity as airports “Sheremetyevo”, “Vnukovo”, district of Khimkinskoe storage pool and some others. A project of constructing high class offices with low rent and well developed building management – mobile and telephone connections, security, air conditioning systems, etc. is being implemented in these districts. The investors, including foreign investors, are being offered offices of “A” and “B” class in the complexes built on the money of the city. It is planned in the frames of the project to construct 60 buildings with 300 000 km2 offices of high class within 15 years.

Mutually beneficial co-operation of city authorities with foreign investors will continue in the future. Full re-construction of “Moskva” hotel on Manezh square - the most prestigious in Moscow – will be much more scaled. The building near Kremlin, State Duma and Bolshoi Theatre will be totally re-constructed from the base, keeping the external architectural appearance.

Special attention in the investment plans is paid by the Moscow authorities to the development of tourist and services infrastructures and re-construction of memorials and places of interest the Russian capital so rich of. Annually about 5 million US dollars are allocated to the development of tourism, which are directed to the advertising materials which form the image of Moscow as a world tourist center and also to the development of the investment projects in the sphere of tourism. All this allows us to hope that the Russian capital will receive annually more than 5 million tourists.

Construction of the third transport ring within Moscow which according to the General plan has already helped to solve serious transport problems of the megapolice is close to its end. Modern highway is built around Moscow in the place of the old Circle road.

Moscow government is punctilious to the payment of its debts, including external obligations. “Deutsche Bank” itself and as a manager of the syndicate of United Europe is the leader of Moscow world creditors. By the way, Moscow branch of “Deutsche Bank” which comprises a commercial bank and an investment company is the largest permanent establishment among foreign banks in the Russian capital. German bank has already assisted in attracting billions dollars to the Russian
economy. Attraction of investments into production and private sector and working in the debt market are the main directions of activity of DB in Russia. It is interesting that German investments amount to nearly one third of the total volume of investments into the economy of the city. The biggest part of more than 1000 German companies operating in Russia, work in Moscow. As a whole more than 85 thousand foreign firms and companies prosper in the city.

Moscow government works mainly through Bank of Moscow, which was founded in 1994 upon the initiative of the Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. It is one of ten largest Russian commercial banks. The bank actively works in the regions of the country. At the same time Moscow government co-operates now with 15 authorized banks. Most corporate clients – thousands of banks and commercial firms – work in Moscow.

Moscow government controls the telephone market in the city. As a result of privatization the city administration manages a company “Moscow City Telephone Communication” with the total number of subscribers exceeding 4 million and annual revenue of USD 100 million. Besides, it has about 4 million subscribers of joint net of cable television, more than 250 million users of mobile telephones and more than 200 thousand paging operators in Moscow telephone market. More than one third of millions of registered in Russia Internet users live in Moscow.

Moscow government allocates huge sums to the development of information support of business undertakings in Moscow, mostly through Internet connection. Here special efforts are made by the program “System MMC” which Head Elena Emelyanova has won the contest “Man of the year in small business”. This honorable title was given to her for the successful organization of new forms of support of small and middle business, development of entrepreneurial infrastructure.

Moscow enterprises successfully operate in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. “Cherkizovo” has made investments into several enterprises, in particular, it purchased the majority of shares of ZAO “Petelinskaya Fabrica” located in the Moscow Region and poultry farm “Vasilievskaya” of Pensa Region. The investments helped to widen the range of products, to create newemployment. Many plants and enterprises in the provinces, for example quarries in Karelia and Krasnoyarsk Region were close to full stop, but after signing agreements with Moscow they recovered. Projects of mutual development of oil fields in Bashkiria and Tatria are in progress. Moscow participates in development of gold fields in Kemerovo Region.

The lion’s share of Russian insurance companies is concentrated in Moscow. The needs of the city are tremendous and Moscow companies work all over the country. The majority of insured belong to the state insurance companies. The most successful are “Rosno”, ASKO, “Reso-Garantia” and “Rossia”, Voenno-strakhovaya compania, Rus-Aig, “Inko”, etc. The head of the politics and the heart of the economy of Russia – Moscow is deeply integrated in the global political and economical space.