Over 78 000 enterprises and organizations of all type property operate on the territory of the region. Region economic development potential: Cheliabinsk area has positive labour potential as well as natural resources, production and scientific ones. The region is situated on the boundary between Europe and Asia, in the southern part of Ural Mountains with nearby plains. Labour potential: The population of region is more than 3,6 million persons (urban population share - 81%), that is of 2,5% against All-Russia background. The essential advantage of the region is high-qualified labour availability along with relatively low payment rate. In various branches of economics there are occupied over 1,5 million persons, that is 42% of region population.

Natural resources

Cheliabinsk region has rich and various natural resources. Mineral resources are concentrated in more than 300 deposits; copper-zink ores, gold, refractory raw materials, talc, graphite and quartz are of most important among others. More than 150 enterprises extract and process mineral resources into products of various reprocess degree. Iron ores of summary reserve of 1,3 billion tons are concentrated in 24 deposits. In addition, among other kinds of ferrous raw materials on the regional territory there is known titan, manganese and chrome strikes. For example, currently, under preparation to exploit is the Suroyamsk deposit of titan and manganese ores of summary reserve about 10 billion tons. There are 9 copper-zinc deposits in the region (four deposits are exploited and three ones are under way to prepare). Their summary volume is of 150 million tons. Their ores contains such associate components as gold, silver, barium, cadmium, selenium, tellurium and other rare earth metals. Some copper-porphyry ores of summary reserve about 790 million tons are currently being estimated. The Cheliabinsk region earth bowels pertains considerable reserve of gold concentrated in ore (70%) and alluvial (30%) strikes. The part of ore gold is prepared for exploiting, but the exploiting itself is possible under condition of attracting considerable investments only. Cheliabinsk region is the Russian monopolist as to extracting and processing graphite (95%), magnesite (95%), talc (70%) and metallurgical dolomite (71%). In the Ural Federal District there Cheliabinsk region share of extracting and processing kaolin is 93%, fire clay - 64%, molding sand - 80%. The region has practically unlimited reserve of cladding stone with a wide range of colours and pictures. Production potential: The present production structure is built up considering historically mighty production potential of the region, profitable geographical position and high-qualified labour availability. The branch industrial complexes such as metallurgical, machine-building, metal processing, fuel-energetic, constructing and agro-industrial ones determine the whole region development. The metallurgical complex leads the economy of Cheliabinsk region. It secures 65,0% of the regional products volume. Ferrous metallurgy is essentially outlined with OJSC "MMK", OJSC "Mechel" (Cheliabinsk) specializing in alloyed steel, as well as the metallurgical plants in the mountainous zone of the South Ural (Asha, Zlatoust, Chebarcul), in addition, the pipe-rolling and metal products plants (Cheliabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Minyar), iron and steel works of Ferro-alloys (Cheliabinsk) and refractory articles (Satka). Non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises such as CJSC "Kyshtymski Mede-electrolitny Zavod", OJSC "Cheliabinski Electrolitny Tsinkovy Zavod", OJSC "Ufaleynickel" and OJSC "Cheliabinski Electrodny Zavod" product zinc, nickel, refined copper and graphite electrodes. The non-ferrous metallurgy share in the production volume is 8,7%. The machine-building complex enterprises give 15,3% of the regional product. The region machine-building branch is made up with car manufacturing industry (25%), tractor and agro-equipment (16,6%) building ones, in addition, metallurgical, road and communication building, electro-technical, mining equipment building as well as machine-tool and instrument ones. The branch leading enterprises are OJSC "Cheliabinski Tractorny Zavod" and OJSC "Uralski Avtomobilny Zavod". The main product articles are mining and metallurgical equipment, trams, industrial tractors, lorries, bulldozers, auto-graders and cranes. In the northwest of region are situated the unique largest centres of atomic industry (Snezhinsk and Ozersk towns), in the western part - rocket and cosmic equipment building centres.

Small business

In late of 2000 on the territory of Cheliabinsk region there functioned more than 19,0 thousand small enterprises capable of quickly and efficiently resolving the de-monopolization issues as well as questions of creating new jobs (practically every fourth job), forming the market and repleting it with goods. Scientific and research potential: There are 16 high educational establishments in the region, including 3 military academies, 2 pedagogical ones (medical and physical culture colleges), Cheliabinsk State and South Ural State Universities, Agro-Engineering University and others. 40 organisations of Cheliabinsk region carry out a wide range of research works and designing projects elaborations. Regional and interregional cooperation: The regional administration pays much attention to regional and interregional cooperation. The scale of measures is elaborated to inculcate cooperation system in; its fulfillment assists overcoming some negative tendencies in the regional economy. On the interregional level the administration of Cheliabinsk area stipulates trade and economic agreements to synergy with the most part of republics and regions of Russia Federation. Investment and tax climate: In order to stimulate investments into regional economy, there are created profitable tax conditions. The whole system of legal acts to render state support as guaranty to potential investors is recently elaborated. There is pledge fund on the base of guarantied security of drawing investments into the region. There is also developed leasing system. As of 01.01.2001 there are registered more than 660 enterprises having foreign investments. The half of these enterprises is established for organizing production activity.

The geography of investments is of wide range. The most important investments of 2000 belong to the Great Britain - 34,8%, Gibraltar - 34,1%, The Ireland - 26,4%; dollar investments do the Antilles Islands and the Swiss have, respectively - 44,7% and 46,8%. In 2000 crediting the real sector of production is as much as three times against 1999 year.