Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with the chief economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). He sought advice from them on how to avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the world financial crisis, and set them the task of looking ahead 10 years and adjusting Strategy-2020 accordingly.
"I'd like to emphasise that the primary objectives will remain unchanged: to improve living standards and guarantee dynamic economic development by introducing innovation, improving the efficiency of budget expenditures and working within the social sphere," Putin said. He gave the scientists until the end of 2011 to draft their post-crisis development proposals.
Sergei Glazyev, director of the New Economy Institute at the State Management University, was the main speaker. He said that economists had predicted the latest crisis back in the late 1980s (18 years before it began), as well as all the dynamics of the raw materials markets and future developments.
Glazyev said that Russia has entered a new stage, and that its economy must make the switch to new technology in the near future, primarily nanotechnology. Private companies, however, do not have the means to develop this industry single-handedly. Glazyev immediately offered a number of proposals: to reduce the refinancing rate to 3%-4% and create a special loan fund from which the Central Bank will credit companies that are playing a strategic role in technological development.
Putin was sceptical, however: "Belarus has actively been doing this for the last few years, lending money at 2% interest in construction," he said. "Everyone knows how this turned out."
The Director of the RAS Institute of Economics Ruslan Grinberg suggested using the European experience and putting an end to debates over what kind of role the state should have in the economy. "In the leading countries of continental Europe – France, Germany – the state's share is 48%, and in Scandinavia's super-communist states it is as much as 54%-55%. But living there is boring," he summed up.
Grinberg explained that Russia needs to increase the role of the state, because its economy is currently in a transitional period. Putin did not argue with this. This position will likely be reflected in the programme of the Popular Front. Grinberg said that the Director of the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies Nikolai Fyodorov, who is now drafting the front's programme, asked him to participate in this work.
By the end of the fourth hour of discussion, the prime minister decided it was time to wrap up. Brandishing a thick blue folder holding the final report and proposals of RAS economists that Glazyev handed to him, Putin asked scientists to put forth their ideas in short memos of a couple of pages.
"Please prepare separate notes," he said to Glazyev. "Don't go into unnecessary detail, but rather simply express the most important aspects of each issue. This will help us make a resolution and submit them to the relevant agencies. It will be more efficient. If you write in general terms," said Putin, shaking the folder again, "your work will simply get lost in the corridors of bureaucracy."
Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov explained to Izvestia that two groups of economists will be working on amendments to Strategy-2020 – the first is already operating under the leadership of Yaroslavl Kuzminov and Vladimir Mau, and the second will consist of RAS academicians.
"But they will not be competing with each other in any way," Peskov assured Izvestia. "They will work in parallel. We simply want the most diverse sources for ideas."
Anastasia Novikova