Penza, 9 June 2017. PenzaNews. The Penza region occupied the 21st position in the national rating of investment climate in constituent entities of the Russian Federation in 2017 improving its result by 24 points. This was stated in a message conveyed by the press service of the regional Ministry of Economics on Friday, June 9, a week after presentation of the results of the investigation at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

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The message says that the rating is compelled by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives together with the leading business associations and evaluates effectiveness of efforts of regional authorities according to 45 indicators in the following fields: "Regulatory environment", "Institutions for business", "Infrastructure and resources", and "Small business support".

For example, according to the decision of the business community, within the indicator "Effectiveness of issuing permissions for construction" of the field "Regulatory environment" it was decided to reduce the number of the required procedures by two times. This allowed reducing the average time of obtaining the permit by 30 days.

As for the field "Institutions for business", interviewed entrepreneurs noted reduction of administrative pressure on business as well as effectiveness of work of the guarantee micro-credit company "Poruchitel".

Commenting on the rating results, the minister of economy of the Penza region Sergei Kapralov noted that at present the results are being analysed and will later be used for the development of an action plan.

"Despite increasing competition among the regions, we will continue our work on business climate improvement as well as on enhancing the position of the Penza region in the rating taking into account that in 2015 the region occupied the 11th place," he noted.