Useful business information

How to do business in Russia (general information and useful links)


Russia / Reasons to invest

  • Russia is the cheapest country in the world in terms of natural resources 
  • Relatively cheap labour 
  • Educated and ready for retraining people 
  • Islands of high technology 
  • Competitive export-oriented production 
  • 150 millions consumers 
  • Political stability and Economic growth 
  • Reformist Government and future liberalization 
  • Favourable taxation regime 

Russia / Foreign Investor Basic Rights
  • Legal protection of investor`s business 
  • To exercise various forms of investing 
  • To reimburse in case of nationalization and requisition of the property or business with foreign investment 
  • Indemnity from legislation changes disadvantageous for a foreign investor 
  • Of due consideration of a dispute in court 
  • To use the revenues, profits and other legally acquired money sums on the territory of the Russian Federation and export the same from the Russian Federation 
  • To export from the Russian Federation 
  • To buy, own and sell land, enterprises, buildings and other real estate assets 

Regulated by the Federal Law  «On Foreign Investments» (1999)


Types of legal presence on the Russian market

Foreign investor can: 

  • Act directly as private investor 
  • Open representative office or branch of the foreign legal entity 
  • Establish Russian legal entity 
    • Entirely foreign owned 
    • Joint venture 

Regulated by the Federal Law  «On Foreign Investments» (1999)


Steps to register a business
  1. State registration authorities 
  2. Statistics authorities 
  3. Tax inspection 
  4. Social welfare funds 
    • Pension 
    • Medical Insurance 
    • Social Security 

Registering in the Federal Security Commission – in case of Joint Stock Companies 

  • informative order of registration 
  • entering the register – 5 days 

Regulated by the Federal Law  «On registration of legal entities» (2001)


Russia / Main taxes

Profit tax

24%

Personal income tax

13%

Unified social tax

5% - 35,6%

VAT

20%

Road tax

1% from gross sales

Property tax

2%

Sales tax

4% (Moscow – 5%)

Regulated by the Tax Code Part I, II (1998, 2001)


Types of bank accounts
  • Russian convertible account
     («K») 
  • Russian non-convertible account
     («N») 
  • Special purpose rouble account for state-issued securities
     («S») 
  • Foreign currency account 

Regulated by the instruction of
 Central Bank of 
Russia (2000)

EMPLOYMENTS ISSUES
  • Min wage 300 roubles 
  • Regular work week 40 hours 
  • Overtime 120 hours in one year 
  • Sick leave compensation 60-100% (usually not exceed an amount equal to 85 min monthly wages) 
  • Vacation 28 work days 
  • 9 official holidays (11 days) 

Regulated by the Labor Code (2001)

CUSTOM CLEARANCE

Types of custom regime:

  • Release for free circulation 
  • Re-import 
  • Transit 
  • Customs warehouse 
  • Duty free shop 
  • Processing on the customs territory 
  • Processing under the customs control 
  • Temporary import (export) 
  • Free customs zone 
  • Free warehouse 
  • Processing outside the customs territory 
  • Export 
  • Re-export 
  • Extermination 
  • Rejection in favour of the state 

Regulated by the Custom Code (1993)

CUSTOM PAYMENTS
  • Custom duties (max 25%) 
  • VAT (20%) 
  • Excise duties 
  • Custom charges: 
    • for granting licenses 
    • for customs clearance 
    • for storage of goods etc. 

Regulated by the Tax Code Part II (1998)
 and Custom Code (1993)

USEFUL CONTACTS

State Registration Chamber

http://www.palata.ru 
 Tel. +7(095)246-7200

Federal Commission of Securities Market

http://www.fedcom.ru 
 Tel. +7(095)797-9564

State Custom Committee

http://www.gtk.ru 
 Tel. +7(095)449-7200

Central Bank of Russia

http://www.cbr.ru 
 Tel. +7(095)921-3116


«ONE WINDOW» service of Trade & Investment Promotion Agency (TIPA)

This Agency is acting as «One-window» for foreign companies and could provide all necessary services in registration, authorization and matchmaking of your business in Russia

CONTACTS

TIPA Address: 18/1, Ovchinnikovskaya nab, Moscow, 113324
 Tel: +7(095)950-9588,  Fax: +7(095)230-2018,  www.inves.ru

General Director:

Sergey V Tsakunov
 tsakunov@inves.ru

Project Managers team:

Aleksey A Kuzmin
 kuzmin@inves.ru

Denis V Vodnev
 vodnev@inves.ru

Market research:

Yuri P Bolshakov
 bolshakov@inves.ru

Guides & Presentation:

Tatiana V Bagdassarova
 bagdasarova@inves.ru

Legal Service:

Natalia B Elisseeva
 eliseeva@inves.ru

Investment Projects Database:

Oksana A Ovchinnikova
 ovchinnikova@inves.ru


Business related web-sites in Russia

1. www.rbcnews.com

Products 

RBC News 

Our agency employs a large network of correspondents and covers the latest political, economic and financial news in Russia, CIS countries, the Baltic States and around the world. We also cover news from a large number of Russian companies, banks, Stock issuers and governmental bodies. The information is current and updated continually through out the day. 

This newsline allows the sorting, searching and filtering of news by content and date of issue. It will also search and recover the whole text of a news item in the archive. 

The agency presents digests and notices from newspapers. 

You can also subscribe to the news lines of some other agencies. 

RBC Stock and Financial News Line. This is a separate and unique product of the Russian Information Agency "RosBusinessConsulting". This product is oriented to specialists of financial and stock markets and includes news from organizations regulating the stock market (Federal Securities Committee (FKTSB), National Association Of Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR), the Central Bank of Russia, the Finance Ministry and others), news from stock issuers and the basic economic and financial news of RBC News Line. This news line releases news about trading on the largest Russian and world exchanges (RTS, MICEX, MSE, FSE, NYSE and others). You can also read comments from leading financiers on the segments of the financial and stock exchanges of Russia and the world and stock indexes of different countries. The information may be received via our web-server or the RBC terminal software. 

HI-Tech News is the news of high technology and computer companies and is from our web server. 

Statistics Information 

The situation on all Russian and international currency, credit and commodity markets, results of stock trading, and official rates on over-the-counter market of non-cash ( about 40 operators), cash (about 300 operators) currencies, conversion rates, soft currency and others; Bank debt obligations from the largest platforms, credit indicators, international credit rates (about 200 operators in Moscow), deposit and bank certificates' rates, comments. 

2. http://www.prime-tass.com

Products and Services

PRIME-TASS LIVE NEWSWIRE 

PRIME-TASS NEWS DAILY 

CUSTOM-MADE INDUSTRY, MARKET AND COMPANY REPORTS 

OTHER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

PRIME-TASS LIVE NEWSWIRE 

The Prime-TASS live newswire consists of about 100 news and analysis items daily under different thematic categories. To find out more about each particular category, please click on its heading: 

Russian Government 
 Economy 
 Banking 
 Oil and Gas 
 Power and Coal 
 Metals 
 Agro Commodities 
 Transport and Automobile 
 Telecoms/Internet 
 Stock Market 
 Foreign Exchange and Fixed Income 
 Former Soviet Union 

You can order the full newswire, a particular news category or several categories bundled to suit your specific needs. 

You can obtain news via the Prime-TASS Internet portal with a personal Internet access account or by e-mail. We offer special prices and discounts for corporate clients subscribing to more than one Internet access account. 

To get more information about subscribing or to get a one-week free trial access to the Prime-TASS live newswire, please contact us at engsales@prime-tass.com or by phone at (7-095) 974-7664 (ext. 164). 

PRIME-TASS NEWS DAILY 

The Prime-Tass News Daily is a 12-page daily newsletter, which focuses on Russian corporate and economic news and also reports on key business news from other CIS countries. More details here

CUSTOM-MADE RUSSIAN INDUSTRY, MARKET AND COMPANY REPORTS 

The reports are based on publicly available information, Prime-TASS news reports and exclusive interviews with government and corporate representatives. The reports can be produced on any Russian industrial sector or any major Russian company that we cover on our newswire. 

All reports are custom-made and no reports are available off the shelf.

The industry and market reports can be produced on: 

  • Russian macroeconomic situation 
  • Russian banking 
  • Russian oil and gas 
  • Russian power and coal 
  • Russian metals 
  • Russian agricultural commodities 
  • Russian transport and automobile 
  • Russian telecom and Internet 
  • Russian stock market 
  • Russian foreign exchange and fixed Income

At your request, industry reports can include the following information: 

  • a general overview of the situation in the industry 
  • the key statistics and dynamics of the industry 
  • the industry’s major enterprises 
  • the mid- to long-term outlook 
  • other requested information

At your request, company reports can include: 

  • the company's production and financial results for all available years 
  • the shareholder structure 
  • other requested information 

Professional native-speaking editors edit all reports. 

The reports, ranging from 10 to 50 pages, are produced within one month of an order being placed. 

You can also request regular updates of these reports. 

To get more information about the reports or to place an order, please contact us at engsales@prime-tass.com or by phone at (7-095) 974-7664 (ext. 164). 

OTHER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 

  • Direct mail and public relations services

Prime-TASS’s marketing department can help you prepare your press releases in Russian and English and send them to Russian media based in both Moscow and the regions. Native-speaking editors edit all English-language press releases. 

  • Monitoring the Russian media

Monitoring can be conducted on a daily or weekly basis. Summaries or translations of Russian-language stories will then be sent to you by email. 

Please contact us at engsales@prime-tass.com or by phone at (7-095) 974-7664 (ext. 164) for further information. 

3. http://www.engl.fis.ru

FIS is the largest information services company in Western Siberia.

We are the first company to introduce a special distribution system of financial information based on INTERNET technologies east of the Ural mountains. FIS's ultimate goal is to provide a basis for the consistent economic growth and development of different kinds of businesses in Siberia. This is accomplished by the development of contemporary information systems of the highest standards. At the moment, the company is working in two main directions. First, it provides instant financial and economic information to local and global markets. The second service FIS provides is Internet Marketing. This includes the building of a unique WWW-system for solving the strategic problems of various types of businesses by utilising contemporary Internet techniques. These techniques vary from developing a web-site concept to implementing Corporate Electronic Trading.

Our web-site received second place in the "Business Site - 98" contest in "Finance and Economics". We are also placed third in the "Golden Site - 98" contest in "Economics and Business". Presently our Company web-site www.fis.ru is one of the most visited sites in Siberia.

4. http://www.moscowtimes.ru

The Moscow Times, Independent Press' flagship edition, was launched in March 1992 as a twice-weekly, and relaunched in October 1992 as a daily. The foreign community and Russian business people depend a great deal on the newspaper for up-to-the-minute news on Moscow, Russia and the world. The paper is an objective, reliable source for English-language news on business, politics and culture. It remains an unrivaled advertising medium for reaching local business people and decision-makers.

The Moscow Times first went online in 1997 at www.moscowtimes.ru and relaunched in the spring of 2000 at www.themoscowtimes.com

If you would like to contact us, please write to webeditor@imedia.ru.

5. www.finmarket.ru (in Russian)

6. http://www.inline.ru (in Russian)