Economy of Saint Petersburg

industries, and many other businesses.

10% of the world's power turbines are made here at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in St. Petersburg are Gazprom NeftFact|date=August 2007, Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.

St. Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners are served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the west end of the Vasilevsky Island. A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making St. Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.

The Saint Petersburg Mint ("Monetny Dvor"), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. St. Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of St. Petersburg, as well as many otner cties. Monuments and bronze statues of the Tsars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made here.

Toyota is building a plant in Shuishary, one of the suburbs; General Motors and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government too. Automotive and parts industry is on the rise here during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is known as a "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). St. Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.

In 2006 Saint-Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, [Budget of St. Petersburg (Russian document): [http://www.gov.spb.ru/law?d&nd=8421328&prevDoc=8421328&spack=000listid%3D010000000100%26listpos%3D0%26lsz%3D1%26nd%3D8372689%26nh%3D0%26] ] and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast [ [http://www.gks.ru/bgd/free/b01_19/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d000/vrp98-05.htm Валовой региональный продукт по субъектам Российской Федерации в 1998-2005гг. (в текущих основных ценах; млн.рублей)] ] , or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects [ [http://www.gks.ru/bgd/free/b01_19/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d000/dusha98-05.htm Валовой региональный продукт на душу населения (в текущих основных ценах; рублей)] ] , contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%). [ [http://www.gks.ru/bgd/free/b01_19/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d000/stru05.htm Отраслевая структура ВРП по видам экономической деятельности (по ОКВЭД) за 2005 год] ]

Transport

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The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a 2824 m long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.

Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transportation (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by "marshrutkas". Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transportation; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bas routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has 4 lines with 60 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 2,8 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze. The 5th metro line is scheduled to open in 2008.

Traffic jams are common in the city, because of narrow Fact|date=March 2008 streets, parking sites along their edges, high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city center, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snowing in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2012.

Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).

References