The government is working on a plan to simplify the migration system, seeking to attract foreign professionals and investors, which it says are necessary to help modernize the country.
Among the Economic Development Ministry's proposals to improve the country's investment climate, simplifying the migration system is first on the list.
The main goal at the moment is to entice the best minds to the country, a government official said. This means personnel not only for future innovation cities, but for the educational sphere as well, as "modernization without smart personnel is impossible."
The Federal Migration Service developed these proposals, said Oleg Artamonov, an advisor to the service's director. "We already tested out this proposal with France, with which Russia signed an agreement on preferences for highly qualified specialists and managers, as well as their family members and accompanying staff," he said.
A repeal of the limits on the labor market and an improvement in visa support are necessary for innovators and investors to come to Russia, Artamonov said.
For such people, officials are offering to cancel quotas on work permits and visa invitations, to stop using permits for foreign workers and to allow their hiring without approval from employment agencies. Whereas it currently takes 12 to 23 months to prepare the documents for such a worker, the new system will require no more than a month, the Economic Development Ministry said in a presentation.
Now, foreigners can get work permits for one year, but only for specific regions (if a person works in St. Petersburg, then he cannot work in Moscow). The ministry is proposing to unify the permit system and increase the length of permits to three years or according to the length of the employment contract.
"The period of one year for foreigners is a joke," a government official said. "And our five-year passports are a farce. We only give our scientists five-year passports, while foreign governments give them 10-year visas."
"The fact that foreign investment has frozen to a certain extent because of migration barriers and that this is accounted for in investment decisions is true — the feedback from our clients testifies to this," said Yevgeny Reizman, a partner at Baker & McKenzie.
The proposed measures require more amendments to legislation, including to the law "On the legal situation of foreign citizens," as well as the Tax and Budget Codes, said the government source. But the proposals already exist and are now being discussed with the relevant agencies, he said. Staff in the Economic Development Ministry and the Federal Migration Service are planning on making the changes quickly, so that they would go into effect Jan. 1, 2011.
Russia has problems with foreign workers, said Jere Calmes, board member of Tele2 and former CEO of pharmacy chain 36.6: To extend your visa you have to leave the country and return to your own country. If Russia wants to attract highly qualified foreigners, it's important to change this, he said.
The list of quota-free categories of workers needs to be expanded as much as possible for highly qualified managers and specialists, Reizman said. According to current procedures, employers have to say a year in advance what kind of worker they will need.
To bring a foreign representative to Russia is so difficult that it's derisive, said Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School. Getting a work permit at the school took one professor more than a year. He had to come several times to fill out different documents, Guriev said. "When people see how the migration authorities treat them, their desire to work in Russia sharply declines," he said. For some people, this problem couldn't be overcome, and instead of Russia, they went to work in Latin America or Europe, he said.
The South Korean Ambassador to Moscow, Lee Yoon-ho, complained on Friday that businessmen from his country experienced difficulty in obtaining work permits, visas and registration with migration authorities.
“We hope that, in order to create an image of a business-friendly country, improvements will be made as soon as possible for the solution of the problems that foreign investors and entrepreneurs encounter,” he told reporters, Interfax reported.
Also on Friday, the Federal Migration Service said it would start accepting online applications from Russians for foreign travel passports on April 1.
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