Vedomosti: "Twenty-six trillion roubles needed"
Manual bailout
«Putin's list»
Yevgenia Ivanitskaya
All of Russia's major industrial companies have now turned out to be strategic. The Government is shelving the idea of a commodity-based economy, analysts are saying with a sigh.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov will chair today a meeting of a government commission for stable economic development. The meeting will produce a list of strategic companies entitled to government support, said a spokesman of Mr Shuvalov's secretariat. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that approving the list would take another couple of days.
The Economic Development Ministry compiled it from lists sent by the Industry and Trade Ministry (200 companies), Energy Ministry (39), and Communications Ministry (9). The Transport Ministry is still working on a list, a ministry source said. "We now have about 300 without defence enterprises," an Economics Ministry official said.
The Prime Minister's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the list had already been sent to the Government and was being finalised. The spokesman of Mr Shuvalov's secretariat added that only the list approved by the commission and signed by Mr Putin would be final and legitimate. However, the list will remain open and will be continuously extended, Mr Peskov said.
Norilsk Nickel and UC Rusal, two non-ferrous metals giants, top the list submitted by the Industry and Trade Ministry, a government source said.
The Communications Ministry said it included the Svyazinvest holding, the MTS mobile service provider, as well as VimpelCom, Megafon, MTT, Transtelecom, Sinterra, Post of Russia, and state fixed-line service provider MGTS.
The Energy Ministry predictably put on its list Gazprom, LUKoil, TNK-BP, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz, Rosneft, and Novatek, according to an Economics Ministry source.
Interfax news agency posted a final version of the engineering companies list, including Transmashholding, Power Machines, OMZ, Emalliance, Rostselmash, Tractor Plants, Russian Machines, Kamaz, Sollers, and AvtoVAZ. Interfax also listed shipyards and 29 transport companies, including Russian Railways (RZD), Aeroflot, Transaero, Urals Airlines, Rosavia, Transneft, and the Novorossiisk and St Petersburg seaports.
A source in the Economics Ministry confirmed that these companies were listed.
The Government will have to support all major companies, said Vladimir Salnikov of the Centre of Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasts. A proposed modernisation breakthrough is hardly practicable right now, with two-thirds of the economy dominated by giant commodity producers, he added.
The listed companies will be entitled to loans guaranteed by the state, subsidies to cover their loan interest, additional capitalisation, debt restructuring, state contracts, and other protectionist measures. Each company will be approached individually, and an individualised scheme will be worked out, Mr Shuvalov said, adding that each of the ministries will be responsible for the listed companies in its sector.
"It is vertical regulation of the economy under individual agreements," said Valery Mironov, chief economist at the Development Centre economic research foundation. The Government didn't support anyone in 1998, but the economy overcame the crisis fast enough. By supporting specific companies the Government is encouraging a welfare mentality: even those who do not need support will apply anyway, Mr Mironov said.
A manager at Surgutneftegaz said his company would only ask for tax privileges for the whole industry. Emalliance President Timur Avdeyenko admitted that his company was not in need of loans, but might need state guarantees.
"We'll keep government support in mind as a last resort option. We hope we will be able to continue with our investment programme with our own money," said Arkady Matkovsky, PR director at TransTeleCom.
Shuvalov's commission will also look at the key figures of the country's latest social and economic forecast for 2009 today.
A government source said that one of the goals is considering new approaches and methods of macro-forecast. The Economic Development Ministry has for the first time adopted the so-called active forecast, containing direct estimates of influence of specific government interventions, a ministry source said. The anti-crisis policies will add 3.1% (1.23 trillion roubles) to the GDP in 2009. For reference, the GDP is expected to drop by 0.5% in the worst case scenario, or grow by 2.4% in the neutral one.
Salnikov believes that, although rough, such estimates are still psychologically important for businesses. "The government, which is the agent of demand, is thus positioning itself as a positive expectations anchor." It is clear that the Economics Ministry could not have released negative estimates, he said.
According to Mironov, companies in non-financial sectors will need a 30% increment to nominal base loan amounts in 2009, or 26 trillion roubles across the economy, to maintain the same GDP level, and even more to produce growth.
The Government will not be able to afford it, but there is hope that the list will encourage lending, an Economics Ministry official said. "The estimate of the Government policies' effectiveness is not based on accurate calculations."
Irina Malkova, Timofei Dziadko, Anastasia Denisova helped to work on this material
