MOSCOW, August 15 (RIA Novosti) — The high tech industry is just now in its early stage of development in Crimea. Very few start-ups have emerged in recent years there. According to the data provided by the Ukrainian Investment Fund, in the last 5 years it received more than one thousand applications from mainland Ukraine and only ten from Crimea.
Industry watchers expect the Russian government to back the development of the high tech industry in the region. In April, Russia's Internet Initiatives Development Fund said it launched a special program for Crimea aimed at opening a start-up accelerator.
"There were talks about giving tax breaks to favor the development of the high tech industry. And even there was an idea of creating a small Silicon Valley in the long term perspective. So the attention is here, it's starting almost from scratch," Adrien Henni, chief-editor of East-West Digital News, told Radio VR.
Experts say businessmen from Russia, Ukraine and Asia are likely to be the most active investors in the region. Though the EU had also shown great interest in Crimea, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine reportedly made most of them put their plans on hold. However, some say that talks about how Western investment funds are going to be skeptical about Russia are not really true, with many of them confirming they're still in the game.
Here's a pretty good example – a payment service company ChronoPay, originally established in Amsterdam, just announced its plans to move to the Crimean market. Its Managing Director Jeroen Smit views it as a great opportunity to expand his business. “Crimea has an impressive tourist potential, and the tourism market in Russia is rapidly switching to e-commerce, and we intend to upgrade our provision in this field. This new market looks very promising, I think the government will make every effort for its development,” he said.
Jeroen says the fact that the region is now undergoing a re-registration in the Russian jurisdiction, which will take some time, is the biggest challenge for businesses. But he is sure it won't take long for more companies to take up the lead and come to Crimea soon.
