Authorities of Karelia expect to open production of baby food from kelp in the Arctic

The Government of Karelia intends to implement a project in the format of public-private partnership (PPP) for the production of food and medical products from the White Sea kelp. The investor, who will start extraction of seaweed in the region already in 2022, is ready to invest about 500 million rubles in the project, Evgeny Perov, director of the republic's development corporation, told reporters.

"We are now working out the issue with the future Arctic resident, who initially planned only to extract kelp in the White Sea and take it to his place in Tver. We offered the investor to localize production in Belomorsk and create additional jobs. Basically we consider that one of the cooperation options is PPP", - he said on the sidelines of the strategic session on PPP mechanisms development that was held on Tuesday in Petrozavodsk.

As TASS was told in the Ministry of Economic Development of Karelia the matter concerns production of food supplements and baby and sports nutrition. The investor already produces these products in another region, but the construction of the enterprise near the White Sea should reduce the cost of logistics.

According to Perov, the volume of declared investments will be about 500 million rubles, in case the project is implemented, 100 highly qualified jobs will be created. "These are engineers, technologists, and medical personnel. We will have to work out the issue with our universities. This is the most important issue, because everything else can be solved by economic mechanisms, unlike the workforce, personnel issues," Perov said.

New production, according to the head of the Corporation of Development of Karelia, may start next year. Preliminarily, the region is considering solving the issue of production facilities in the framework of public-private partnership.

"The goal is to leave our patrimony here, process it, add value to it. We're very interested in the project," Perow noted.


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