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What measures should be taken to make migration policy effective in Russia?
Rinat Karimov, the chairman of the labour migrantsí union
A complex of measures is needed.
Firstly, those labour migrants who plan to move to Moscow should be told
that about 2 million migrants live in Moscow today, most of them are from the CIS countries.
Plus, there is internal migration.
At the same time, the government of Moscow sets a quota for labour migrants who can work in Moscow
ñ 150,000 people.
This is less than 10%.
This is for 2013, while in 2014 the quota will fall.
Thus, they have to think twice before coming to Moscow, which is overwhelmed with labour migrants.
The Russian Federation is a big state with more than 80 constituent parts.
Some regions of the federation have a different situation;
there are jobs, but they lack a local population and labour migrants.
Certain targeted work should be provided among labour migrants who live in Moscow,
so that they would be motivated to move to the regions of Russia, which demand them.
This is a great deal of work.
Of course, salaries are smaller there in comparison to Moscow.
But expenditures are also smaller in other regions.
They can rent a cheap apartment and so on.
I think these are two essential moments which could normalize the situation;
however, it will take a lot of time.
Do you think visas should be launched for the CIS countries?
These days everybody thinks that visas are a panacea:
if we launch visas, the number of migrants will decrease.
We shouldnít forget that Russia has 11 million labour migrants,
and they will stay here and nothing will change.
This is the first point.
Secondly, a person will get some kind of visa anyway.
We travel all over the world, visiting Egypt and Europe; and tourist visas are available.
You need only to book a hotel to get a visa.
Even if citizens of neighboring countries get not labour visas,
but tourist visas or visas for education,
when they come to Russia they will stay here illegally, like many of them today.