Komsomolskaya Pravda : "More than 1,100 volunteers have joined Putin’s agency"
Speaking in Volgograd exactly a month ago, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested establishing the Agency of Strategic Initiatives (ASI) to support and promote new projects of medium-sized businesses. Its goal is to create a channel of direct communication between the prime minister and the authors of interesting economic and social projects.
Yesterday, Director of the Government's Department of Economy and Finance Andrei Belousov spoke live about the agency's first steps on Radio KP (97.2 FM) and KP-TV.
Question: Mr Belousov, the prime minister often meets with the heads of medium-sized companies and understands their troubles and problems even without the agency...
Answer: Nevertheless, these companies are the furthest removed from both the government and the prime minister. Ties with big business have been well established via the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), contacts with small companies have also been more or less established, but medium-sized companies have found themselves isolated from decision-making centres.
At the same time, the crisis has shown that the main potential of our growth is concentrated in these companies. I can quote a figure: about half of medium-sized companies are operating in the manufacturing industry and agriculture. This explains the need to establish direct links with them, avoiding bureaucratic obstacles.
Q: And is this possible at all? Will there be some secret ways of obviating the bureaucrats?
A: ASI will be a network agency and will work face to face with business people.
Q: Have many project proposals been submitted so far?
A: Several dozen. The number of those who want to compete for the post of the agency's head or take part in the ASI regional network has already exceeded 1,100. They represent practically every region.
This is how it works. A project is put on ASI's site. People involved in the regional network will immediately test it. The projects that gather the greatest number of positive ratings will be submitted to the agency and assessed by the ASI Expert Council that is composed of business people only.
Q: Sorry, but this resembles some bureaucratic arrangement...
A: This is similar to a public discussion. Members of the Expert Council will directly contact the author of the project. Not a single government official is involved in this process save Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina. She will join the Supervisory Council. In other words, representatives of medium-sized companies will have a decisive say. The entire system is oriented around them.
Q: How does ASI differ from Skolkovo?
A: Skolkovo is a project for a special economic zone, a large laboratory or a pilot industrial unit for refining absolutely new methods of dealing with innovative business. ASI is an agency for the masses. Its main mission is not only, and probably even not so much, to support individual projects no matter how important they may be, as to change the legal, bureaucratic environment that has created the main administrative burden for our medium-sized private companies.
Q: When will the agency start working? When will the prime minister receive the first project proposals?
A: I think this will happen in early August. By that time the prime minister will make his choice on the agency's head and the members of the Expert Council based on the results of the ongoing competition. The agency will start systematic work in September, and it must reach its full capacity, so to speak, by the end of the year.
Q: Will projects be carried out? Will we learn about this?
A: Yes, everything will be public from start to finish.
Q: So now people can continue sending the agency their project proposals?
A: Absolutely. All those who think they have meaningful projects can send their descriptions to the agency through the internet. Here's the address – asi.ru.
Alexander Gamov
