Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin coordinated a meeting of the regional business support committee recently; the meeting was attended by the heads of Sverdlovsk Region’s leading construction companies.

The agenda of the meeting covered issues related to the economic and financial state of the local building enterprises and to the measures taken by these enterprises to pay more taxes to the region’s consolidated budget. In addition, the attendees discussed the builders’ need to pay off their state-subsidized bank loans.

ZAO Nova-Stroy’s top executive Sergey Malafeev reported his company was one of Yekaterinburg’s major developers, with 73,900 sq m worth of housing and other buildings commissioned in 2008 and 2009 and 11 new apartment buildings currently under construction.

It turned out during the discussion that the company’s revenues rose by 107% last year, whereas the prime cost went up a whopping 100%. The government committee observed that these figures could mean the developer was trying to find a way of paying smaller taxes.

According to the forecast provided by ZAO Nova-Stroy, the company will get considerably more sales revenues this year compared with the earlier years. However, this is not going to mean that the builder will pay more taxes to Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget in 2010. Sergey Malafeev explained that the soaring prime cost had to do with great increases in land rent and the cost of money-borrowing.