Background. Muezersky District and the City of Lieksa are interested in developing cross-border links, strengthening socio-cultural contacts. Construction of the "Inari" cross-border motor vehicle checkpoint is their common task, on which solution future development of the two territories depends. Feasibility study for the development of the Inari cross-border checkpoint is a first step in the collaborative work.
In full, the feasibility study occupies 94 pages of the A4 format and comprises the assessment of the current state of the checkpoint, calculations of the load on the planned Inari cross-border checkpoint, forecast of the dynamics of the cargo and tourist traffic across the checkpoint, general technical characteristics and estimate of the cost-efficiency and return rate for the investments in developing the Inari checkpoint.

Current state of the Inari checkpoint. The Inari checkpoint is situated in the north of the Russian-Finnish border, at the same latitude as the City of Lieksa, c. 70 km east of it. Roads leading to the checkpoint on the Finnish side are in good condition. The following parameters characterise the activities of the Inari simple-procedure checkpoint:

Today, the Inari checkpoint serves 5.4% of all cargo transport border crossings through all five simple-procedure checkpoints.

Forecast of cargo traffic across the Inari cross-border checkpoint. Muezersky District contains 7.8% of the total length of motor roads in Karelia. The density of motor roads in the district is c. 30km/1000 sq. km (the average for Karelia is 37 km/1000 sq. km). The motor cargo traffic in the district is 37.8 million ton-km (total for Karelia is 1267 million ton-km). The passenger traffic in the district is 1.1 million passenger-km.
Three potential scenarios of the cargo traffic dynamics across Muezersky District were developed within the project: pessimistic, moderate and optimistic. The forecasts were based on data on the scope and intensity of natural resource utilisation, number of enterprises and production volumes, quality of the transport infrastructure, foundation of new manufacturing businesses in the district.
The results for the three forecasted scenarios are shown in the table:

Forecast of tourist traffic across the Inari cross-border checkpoint. Three potential scenarios are suggested also for the dynamics of tourist traffic across the Inari cross-border checkpoint: optimistic, pessimistic and moderate. It is expected that about 60% of all tourists would be foreign citizens coming to the Muezersky District to practice nature and water-sport tourism. Keeping this in mind, the following differentiation is assumed for the tourist traffic across the Inari cross-border checkpoint:

• there will be few large groups of tourists coming by bus (30% of the total tourist traffic at maximum);
• the bulk of tourists will be small groups and singular tourists arriving by private cars (60% or more).

The results for the three forecasted scenarios are shown in the table:

Planned handling capacity of the Inari cross-border checkpoint.  According to predictive calculations, the checkpoint handling capacity will be 40,000 vehicles/year and 90,000 ind./year (i.e. 110 vehicles/day and 250 ind./day), the average traffic being 20,000 vehicles/year and 60,000 ind./year (i.e. 55 vehicles/day and 170 ind./day).
Most of the time, the Inari cross-border checkpoint will operate at 60-70% of the potential capacity. With a checkpoint with such handling capacity established, one can expert the demand for border crossing services in the Muezersky District to be fully satisfied.
The Inari cross-border checkpoint will specialise in three activities:

1. services to logging enterprises of the Muezersky District and their Finnish partners (roundwood export from Russia);
2. services to cross-border activities;
3. services to European and Russian tourists.

Requirements to the organisation of the Inari cross-border checkpoint comply with international requirements to the operation of cross-border checkpoints. The following has to be accomplished for the Inari cross-border checkpoint to be put into operation:

1. construction of new operational facilities;
2. acquisition of special equipment for frontier control;
3. staff training in compliance with new operational methods and modes;
4. repair of the main road to the village of Lendery, other roads and bridges in the stretch from the border to the village of Lendery.

Planning documents on the Inari cross-border checkpoint are prepared taking into account the need to accommodate the following service units: customs, frontier and migration services, motor licensing and inspection department, Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs office, veterinary, phytosanitary and sanitary-epidemiological inspectorates.

Estimate of the project costs, cost-efficiency and investment return time for the Inari cross-border checkpoint. The time by which the Inari cross-border checkpoint achieves the planned capacity stipulated in predictive calculations is 2007. The duration of the investment phase of the project is 3 years. Investments into the Inari cross-border checkpoint development amount to EUR 3,920,000:

Estimates of the cost-efficiency and investment return rate for the Inari cross-border checkpoint were based on the aggregate effect from the activities of the checkpoint:

Three options were considered when estimating the economic efficiency of investing into the construction of the Inari cross-border checkpoint:

1. Option "A"  - only the increase in tax proceeds in the budgets of all levels from the opening of the Inari cross-border checkpoint are taken into account.
2. Option "B" - income from tourism development and reduction of transport costs owing to the opening of the Inari cross-border checkpoint are taken into account.
3. Option "C" - all the three kinds of income are taken into account.

The results of estimating the economic efficiency for the three options are as follows:

Calculations indicate that implementation of the project for the development of the Inari cross-border checkpoint would be efficient. Results of the sensitivity and resistance analysis show that the project is highly resistant to most external economic risks.

ЊсЏЅрты: E. Nemkovich, Yu. Saveliev, S. Lykov