VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
“Support from Russian citizens has always helped us, and I’m confident that the government’s future line-up will rely on the people. We must never forget about the needs of ordinary people. We must always remember how government-level decisions influence the lives of all ordinary Russian citizens.”
“To join the world’s top 20 countries in terms of investment climate, we must cut the number of permits from 51 to 7 and the period during which businesses receive such permits from 423 to at least 35. I suggest that we use the best global practices to accelerate the coordination of design documents and to radically simplify all of the coordination procedures and the issue of construction permits.”
“Entrepreneurial talent is Russia’s most important resource. We must pave the way for a new generation of business by creating an optimal investment climate in Russia and the best corporate and anti-monopoly laws and by removing barriers to access to the market for new companies.”
“An Internet democracy should be integrated into the broader development framework for a referendum democracy. It should be more widely used at the municipal and regional levels. Municipal legislatures and their heads should be directly elected; moreover, the work of other key officials should also be publicly evaluated.”
“We must create a political system under which we will be able to and are obliged to tell people the truth. People who propose solutions and programmes must be responsible for their implementation. Those who elect decision makers must understand who and what they are voting for. This will ensure trust, constructive dialogue and mutual respect between society and the government.”
“I believe that democracy includes both the fundamental right of the people to choose a government and also the possibility to continuously influence it and its process of decision-making. Hence, democracy needs mechanisms of regular and direct action and efficient channels for dialogue, public control, communication and feedback.”
“We have to adjust the mechanisms of the political system so that they capture and reflect the interests of large social groups and ensure public coordination of these interests. The system should not only ensure the legitimacy of power, but also ensure that people have confidence that they have a fair government, including in those cases when they are in a minority.”
“Real democracy cannot be created overnight and cannot be a carbon copy of some external example. Society must be completely ready for using democratic mechanisms. The majority of people must see themselves as citizens of their country, ready to devote their attention, time and efforts on a regular basis to taking part in the process of governance. In other words, democracy is effective only when people are ready to invest something in it.”
“A large package of proposals on the development of our political and party system has been submitted to the State Duma today. The idea is to simplify the registration of parties, to cancel the required collection of signatures for participating in the elections to the State Duma and regional legislatures, and to reduce the number of signatures required for registering as a presidential candidate.”
“A great deal will depend on how our agencies, their chief executives and other top and middle-level managers carry out our instructions.<…> In this regard I would like to say that we also intend to introduce special mechanisms for evaluating the work of government institutions.”
“Most importantly, in addition to the current balanced economy and solid macroeconomic indicators, Russia also enjoys basic, long-term and powerful advantages. Our core resource consists of a talented, creative, well trained and educated people. This is an enormous treasure and a good starting point from which to launch modern manufacturing processes.”
“Russia is the world’s sixth largest economy and has all it takes to become a top five economy. I’m confident that this will happen. We ended last year with good results if you look at the aggregate economic outcome. Without exaggeration, this is one of the world’s best results. Economic growth over 4% is one of the best rates among G8 members. No, not just one of the best, it actually is the best result among other large European economies.”
“WTO membership creates better conditions for attracting investment to this industry; this is an obvious fact. We will be able to attract investment primarily to processing, to the food industry, to gain a foothold for our products at foreign markets, to protect domestic producers from unfair competition inside Russia as well as abroad. It is clear that after the accession to the WTO, we should not relax; we should understand and consider the many subtleties of WTO membership.”
“Russia must play a bigger part in the international division of labour, not only as a supplier of commodities and energy, but as an owner of regularly upgraded cutting-edge technology in at least some sectors.”
“We must alter our state, as well as our executive and judicial branches. We must do away with the accusatory bias of law enforcement, investigative, prosecutorial and judicial agencies. We must eliminate all vestiges and leftovers of Soviet-era law enforcement concepts and all legal snags that make it possible to open up a criminal case against any party involved in a commercial dispute. All economic cases must be tried by commercial courts, rather than by general jurisdiction courts.”
“Last year the government approved the strategy for Russia’s innovation-based development until 2020. <…>We will need to both carry out modernisation and create new industries. Retrofitting should become a widespread practice and an effective development model. In addition, Russia will need to significantly expand its presence on global high-tech markets.”
“Russia’s new economy will be a diversified economy where many competitive sectors will be developed alongside a modern fuel and energy industry. <…> Our new economy will be an efficient economy, with high labour productivity and low energy consumption. <…> The new economy will provide highly productive and high paying jobs. <…> It will be an economy of continuously upgraded technology. <…>It will be an economy in which small businesses will provide at least half of the jobs in the economy.”
“Restoring the innovative nature of the economy should begin with universities – which should be seen as both centers for fundamental science and resources for innovative people. We need to pursue a national objective that results in globally competitive Russian universities. By 2020, we should have several world-class universities that span the entire spectrum of modern material and social technologies.”
“Russia can do more than simply buy innovation – we can also generate it. Our place in the future depends on how well we will use our potential. The high levels of education among our people, our impressive legacy of fundamental science, our engineering schools, and the infrastructure for pilot-scale production which is preserved in many industries, are all factors that we have a duty to use.”
“Having an economy that cannot guarantee us stability, sovereignty and prosperity is unacceptable for Russia. We need a new economy with a competitive industry and infrastructure, a developed services sector and effective agriculture: an economy based on modern technology. We must develop an effective mechanism for modernising our economy and attract the huge material and personnel resources needed to achieve this goal.”
