The Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Kharlov announced in the course of the ministry meeting that the region had received over $1.338bn worth of foreign investment altogether in 2007, which was comparable with the previous year’s level. However, the structure of these investments proved to be much better than before. Direct foreign investments, for instance, amounted to $119m, which exceeds the figures for 2006 by thirty times. Besides, this was the region’s best-ever result since 2001 when the figure came to $103m and then kept going down, the Ministry’s press officer reports.

Most investments came from Cyprus, the United States, the British Virgin Islands, and the Netherlands. The accumulated share of these countries in the total volume of foreign investment in the region comes to nearly 75%.

Nevertheless, plenty of municipalities are still not trying to attract any investment and don’t even seem to have any clear-cut idea as to how this can be done. The Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region reports it is prepared to share its experience and offer advice and coordination to these towns and cities.