Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has told business daily Vedomosti that public and private financing is in place “in its entirety” to see the Skolkovo project through.
Speaking to the newspaper on its 15th anniversary, Medvedev noted that although the country had changed since he set up Skolkovo as president in 2010, “everything is going according to plan.”
“The financing, both from the budget and the private sector, is being delivered in its entirety,” he was quoted as saying.
“Around 1,000 startups are working successfully – I visit them periodically – and in fact, these are very interesting developing companies,” he added.
Medvedev speaking at the 2014 Startup Village in Skolkovo in June
Skolkovo is seen as one of Medvedev’s top projects, an effort to decrease the dependence of the Russian economy on oil and gas exports and shift it onto innovations.
More than 1,000 companies count themselves as Skolkovo residents, a status that affords tax breaks, infrastructure support and connections with potential investors.
The Skolkovo Innovation Center, a 400-hectare site on the fringes of Moscow, is to be complete by 2020 and will house many of the residents as well as the Skoltech university, a technopark, housing and other facilities.
Medvedev, who is on the board of trustees at the Skolkovo Foundation, acknowledged “now isn’t the best period for the development of innovations; we have been surrounded by sanctions from all sides.”
But he also insisted that nothing will blow Russia off course as it seeks to diversify its economy.
“All innovation institutes are operational,” he said.
Despite pressure from abroad, many of the foreign companies are retaining their ties to Skolkovo, Medvedev added. “They haven’t gone anywhere, nothing’s stopped,” he said.
