This week a regular meeting of the supervisory board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) will take place at the Government House. At this meeting ASI directors will present their project – the Leaders Club – to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. It is aimed at helping business people conduct dialogues with top officials and promote their legislative initiatives. ASI General Director Andrei Nikitin told Izvestia that the club will allow business people from the regions to meet with ministers and governors.
The club will meet for the first time on January 31. It will be an institutional meeting – entrepreneurs will decide whether they should register a new public organisation or simply create a venue for an exchange of opinion. In early December Nikitin told Putin how the club will be organised and invited him to take part. The main focus of the club is to establish direct contact between the owners of small and medium private companies with high-ranking officials. As a rule, the former are very closely linked with local bureaucrats but are virtually unable to present their proposals to the heads of ministries and departments, Nikitin explained to Izvestia.
"To avoid favoritism, meetings will be held on a regular basis. Ministers will be invited to attend them. Governors too, if there are issues in the regions," Nikitin said.
ASI has promised that each meeting will yield solid results. Entrepreneurs will be able to suggest amendments to laws concerning their businesses through the club. ASI is planning to present the programme officially at the Krasnoyarsk economic forum in the middle of February.
Vladislav Kurochkin, vice president of the association of small and medium business, Opora Rossii, believes that the club will be useful for entrepreneurs but will hardly promote competition.
"Business always gains from expanded networking, especially at the top level, but this club is designed for the companies that are already doing well," Kurochkin explained to Izvestia. "Promoting competition requires different mechanisms and approaches."
At its supervisory board meeting, ASI will also present ten new projects. One of them is the New Village. The plan provides for the formation of up to 426 mini farms. The main difference between the New Village programme and the old rural plan is that it provides for full-cycle production – from cattle breeding and crop growing to processing and fodder production. One agro-complex is already operating in the Ulyanovsk Region and ASI suggests using this model in other regions.
One more project concerns car recycling. Its authors suggest building shredding centres in big cities to scrap old cars with minimal damage to the environment. They want to expand this practice and establish contacts with the local authorities to help them rid city streets of abandoned cars.
ASI suggests a special government programme for shredding centres and regulating when cars owners must dispose of their vehicles.
Anastasia Novikova
