(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – May 22, 2013) The role of the government is to provide infrastructure and facilitate technological development and innovation, Communications and Press Minister Nikolai Nikiforov told business representatives at the Leaders’ Club forum on Tuesday. Information technology is important for the Russian economy, Nikiforov said. It accounts for 4.6 percent of the nation’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – May 21, 2013) The Russian government has no plans to break up the state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told the state-owned paper Rossiiskaya Gazeta on May 20. Speculation has been mounting that the state will break the inefficient behemoth up in its quest to make Russias biggest tax payer more […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 18, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has lashed out against legal initiatives that may discourage private enterprise. “It is a completely unacceptable situation that, as a result of some decisions, the total number of those who see entrepreneurial activities as their future occupation should decline,” Medvedev said at a meeting of the leadership of the ruling […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – May 20, 2013) Greater cooperation between tax authorities from 45 countries, including more extensive information sharing to help catch evaders, was the result of an international conference in Moscow that was hosted by the Federal Taxation Service and ended on Friday. “The message to tax evaders and those who facilitate tax evasion […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – May 20, 2013) Russia’s biggest company turned 20 this year. But at Gazprom, there appears to be little cause for celebration. The state-controlled natural gas monopoly, which was established as a publicly traded corporation in 1993, recently announced that its net profits fell by 11 percent last year and its valuation […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 17, 2013) A bribery scandal at French lender Societe Generale’s Russian entity Rosbank shows that stricter measures should be implemented by both Western and Russian companies to enforce compliance with their codes of conduct, experts said. The Investigative Committee said Thursday that they have opened a criminal case into Rosbank chief […]
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(Interfax – May 16, 2013) Russia will continue improving its investment appeal and introducing innovations regardless of the scenario of Russia’s socio-economic development adopted by the Russian government by 2016, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. “We will continue improving the investment appeal, supporting the high-tech sectors, and introducing innovations regardless of what scenario will be eventuated,” Medvedev told a […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 15, 2013) Consumption in Russia is higher than production efficiency, and this could weaken the ruble and drive up inflation in the medium-term if labor productivity does not significantly improve, Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov said while presenting at a Wednesday conference entitled ‘The National System of Competences and Qualifications,’ organized by the newspaper Vedomosti and […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 15, 2013) Former YUKOS Head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former Menatep Board Chairman Platon Lebedev are unlikely to be released under amnesty for economic crimes initiated by business ombudsman Boris Titov because the two were sentenced under articles, which are included in the draft being prepared to be submitted to the Russian State Duma. “There will be […]
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(Interfax – May 15, 2013) The head of the Skolkovo Foundation, tycoon Viktor Vekselberg, has denied reports that the innovations centre has been financing the opposition in Russia, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported on 15 May. Asked by journalists whether the Skolkovo Foundation may have been involved in financing the opposition movement in Russia, he said: “No, it is categorically […]
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(Interfax – May 13, 2013) State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has partially backed the proposal made by business ombudsman Boris Titov on amnesty for economic crimes. “Some citizens convicted for so-called economic crimes can and should be amnestied. Some of those who have committed economic crimes should still serve their sentences,” Naryshkin told reporters in the State Duma on Monday. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – May 13, 2013) The government’s fiscal watchdog has started looking at Gazprom’s books in an audit that is poised to produce exciting results, the agency’s chief said. “I think the findings will be interesting,” Sergei Stepashin, chairman of the Audit Chamber, said Friday, Interfax reported. His remarks are the latest update on […]
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(Interfax – LONDON/MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) Russian business tycoon Boris Berezovsky was buried Brookwood cemetery, Surrey, in Great Britain, a source close to the businessman told Interfax on Wednesday. “The burial service was conducted in the family circle, while the burial ceremony itself was attended by 50 to 70 people – the family and friends of the late oligarch,” the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – May 8, 2013) An investigation into the embezzlement of budget funds from state-owned innovation hub Skolkovo has led to a public spat between the agency conducting the investigation and the Cabinet of Ministers, whose head, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, created the institution in 2010. On Tuesday, pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia published a damning […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) An initiative by business ombudsman Boris Titov to free more than 100,000 entrepreneurs serving prison sentences for white-collar crimes will be submitted to the State Duma next week, Kommersant reported Wednesday. Titov warned that many people were likely to oppose the idea, but he acknowledged that without such a measure it would […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, May 7, 2013) Only seven percent of Russian citizens currently engage in entrepreneurial activity and few of the remainder even consider that a possibility, according to the Global Entrepreneurial Survey, which ranks Russia 67th out of 69 countries in terms of the number of people who form and operate new companies. Olga […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) A growing number of Russian businessmen expect the country’s economy to grow in the next 12 months, according to a quarterly survey by Grant Thornton International released Wednesday The latest survey data, when compared to last year’s results, shows an increase in the number of Russian business leaders who are annoyed with […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Marc Bennetts – May 2, 2013) Marc Bennetts is a British writer and journalist. He lives in Moscow and is author of “Football Dynamo”, a book on modern Russia and football published in 2008. The fertile territories around Voronezh have long been referred to as Russia’s ‘breadbasket’. They also hold the last major nickel reserves in Europe, and […]
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(Cato Institute – cato.org – Andrei Illarionov – May 1, 2013) It is challenging to calculate the industrial output for post-socialist transition economies. However, through meticulous work based on internationally recognized statistical standards over two decades, two Russian economists currently associated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Eduard Baranov and Vladimir Bessonov, were able to produce a statistical […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – April 30, 2013) SOCHI The problems on Ruslan Zokhidov’s mind are not typical for a young man of his age: he is the least likely person to be found nattily dressed at a trendy night club or entering a university lugging a pile of books. Instead, Zokhidov, 19, lugs building materials […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Robert LaFranco & Alex Sazonov – May 1, 2013) Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest person, moved control of most of his $20 billion fortune last year to a holding company based in the British Virgin Islands, a collection of more than 60 isles 5,600 miles away from Moscow. The company, USM Holdings, controls the billionaire’s most valuable […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Dmitri Travin – April 30, 2013) Dmitri Travin is Research Director at the European University in St. Petersburg’s Centre of Modernization Studies Vladimir Putin has long paid lip service to the notion that his government should address the problem of corruption. Is his new campaign for real, or will it be more of a shootout between corrupt officials […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – April 29, 2013) The American Chamber of Commerce cleared the decks straightaway at its annual investment conference last week, in the wake of a difficult year in Russian-U.S. political relations. “One of the purposes of this conference is to emphasize the fact that basically it’s business as usual, despite some of the […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 26, 2013) Anatoly Chubais, who oversaw Russia’s mass privatization drive in the 1990s, said on Friday he had always treated allegations that his US advisers at the time were operatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as rumors – until President Vladimir Putin said so out loud yesterday. “I often heard those claims and […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 25, 2013) Officers of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency operated as consultants to Anatoly Chubais, the Russian deputy prime minister who oversaw the privatization of the country’s economy in the early 1990’s, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. “In Chubais’ entourage, it has now turned out, CIA officers worked as consultants,” Putin said […]
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(Interfax – April 18, 2013) Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov said on 18 April that “certain forces” are trying to undermine the country’s budding innovation centre, Skolkovo, which is being investigated for embezzlement, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported. Surkov, who is a member of the Skolkovo Foundation’s board of trustees, was speaking following a raid by Federal Security […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 19, 2013) The downtown office of the Skolkovo Foundation was searched Thursday as part of an ongoing corruption scandal involving two former executives whom the Investigative Committee accused of using a fraudulent tender to steal 23.8 million rubles ($789,000). A spokesman for Skolkovo Russia’s high profile project to diversify its […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – April 19, 2013) A prominent Kremlin critic in the largely rubber-stamp parliament, Ponomaryov suggested that ulterior motives lay behind Friday’s news. Investigators have accused a top manager at the government’s flagship Skolkovo Foundation of making $750,000 in improper payments to a State Duma deputy with close links to the street protest movement, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – April 16, 2013) The Economic Development Ministry of Russia proposed another five large privatization transactions in addition to the sale of 14% of ALROSA and an additional issue of VTB worth RUB100bn, Minister Andrei Belousov said, Vedomosti reported. The Ministry proposes to privatize in 2013 up to 19% of Rosneft, state-owned stakes in Aeroflot […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 12, 2013) The Russian Audit Chamber has looked into the observance of Russia’s obligations and the realization of Russia’s rights in its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and suggests providing more support for exports and agriculture, the Public Chamber said in a press release. Participants in the Public Chamber collegium held on April 8 […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 12, 2013) Most of the Russian officials added on Friday to the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals List (OFAC’s SDN list) under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 are no longer working in the positions they occupied when an investigation against Hermitage Capital lawyer […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 11, 2013) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has branded the U.S. Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act as a manifestation of “the Russophobia that is traditionally present” in U.S. Congress. One of the architects of the Magnitsky act was Hermitage Capital investment fund chief executive William Browder, who “illegally hoarded a large fortune in the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Artem Zagorodnov, RBTH – April 10, 2013) As entrepreneurs begin to reap benefits from a top-down war against corruption, its long-term effects on the business climate remain uncertain. Russia’s staggering annual $300 billion corruption market (according to the government’s own figures) permeates nearly every aspect of life, from registering a business to obtaining […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 9, 2013) The government has allowed the Economic Development Ministry to obtain visas for the employees of big foreign companies that invest in the Russian economy from the country’s diplomatic missions and consulates abroad, a news report said Monday. The rules also apply to firms involved in the implementation of the Skolkovo project and […]
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(Interfax – AMSTERDAM, April 8, 2013) Russian authorities will continue to make effort to improve investment climate in the country. “We will do our best to create favorable business environment,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Russian and Dutch businessmen in Amsterdam on Monday. “We are doing our best to improve business climate in Russia. Probably, there […]
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(Interfax – Zelenograd, April 5, 2013) The Skolkovo (science park) project will be carried out despite the doubts in its viability circulating in society, the deputy PM and government Chief of Staff, Vladislav Surkov, has said. “Despite various opinions and discussions in society we will have our own way and will still continue building Skolkovo,” he said at the meeting […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Maximova, special to RBTH – April 8, 2013) Many do not follow in their parents’ footsteps, setting up their own businesses instead. The children of Russia’s billionaires do not all choose to take up their parents’ wealth and business empires. In fact, many have started to make names for themselves with separate […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 4, 2013) Russian federal state property agency Rosimushchestvo will publish the privatization plan for 2014-2016 in May, the head of the agency, Deputy Economic Development Minister Olga Dergunova, said at the Russian Exchange Forum in Moscow on Thursday. “We are currently at the stage of forming the 2014-2016 privatization plan. The information will be published on […]
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YAKUTSK. April 2 (Interfax) – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the arrival of an effective owner is a must when state companies are being privatized; the government, however, cannot force any decisions on businesses. “No one can force any decisions on anyone. We want our businesses to be socially responsible, but we cannot institute this by passing decrees,” Medvedev told […]
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(Interfax – April 1, 2013) A former member of the government of Russia’s Kalmykia republic has confirmed during the Sergei Magnitsky tax evasion trial that the registration of the Dalnyaya Step and Saturn Investments companies in Kalmykia as investment firms involved document forgery. Magnitsky, who was an external auditor for British investment fund Hermitage Capital and died in a Moscow […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – April 2, 2013 -Yevgeny Gontmakher, special to RBTH) Analyst Yevgeny Gontmakher commemorates Berezovsky, who was not a hero but a face and a symbol of 90s. Yevgeny Gontmakher is deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. Boris Berezovsky, who died last month, was a shrewd self-promoter, but he was […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – March 29, 2013) The oligarch is dead. Long live the oligarchy. Boris Berezovsky’s death in London last week has been called the end of an era, and in some ways it sort of was. The man who once controlled swaths of the Russian economy and was called everything from the Godfather of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – March 28, 2013) Russia and four other major emerging economies on Wednesday agreed to set up a council that seeks to facilitate joint business projects. But the five countries, known as BRICS, put off the establishment of a joint development bank, saying the move requires more work. A brief dust-up involving President […]
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MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) – Russia’s stock market has very strong potential for growth, Morgan Stanley analysts believe. Russian equities are currently the lowest priced among emerging markets and there are a number of reasons to expect that the discount at which they are traded will decrease, the investment bank’s analysts said in a report. Even the Russian oil and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – March 27, 2013) While most Russians wade through a bureaucratic quagmire to get a visa for the European Union or the United States, once they arrive they enjoy almost complete freedom of movement. For those who choose to come to Russia to live and work, however, the bureaucratic challenges really begin to […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – March 25, 2013 – Conor Lenihan, special to RBTH) Russia has been climbing rapidly up the innovation rankings over the last five years. Conor Lenihan is Skolkovo Foundation Vice President for External Economic Relations. He previously served as Ireland’s Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation. German statesman Otto von Bismarck once famously observed […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 26, 2013) “Is Boris Berezovsky the godfather of Russia’s godfathers? It sure looks that way,” Russian-American journalist Paul Klebnikov wrote in an article published in late 1996, the year a small group of Russian oligarchs, including Berezovsky, engineered President Boris Yeltsin’s re-election. Berezovsky, then a billionaire businessman, objected to the portrayal, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – March 25, 2013) The survey conducted by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) together with Fleishman-Hillard Vanguard shows that 44% of respondents noticed the improvement of the business environment (34% considers the improvement minor) versus 55% in 2011, RBC daily reported. The improvement in the quality of tax administration is accompanied by […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – March 21, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. Throughout Russia’s history its rulers have attempted to curtail the consumption of alcohol and/or tobacco. Gorbachev had little success in the 1980s; will this year’s new laws […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 22, 2013) Andrew Somers will step aside after 12 years as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia. Somers has informed the business association’s board that this will be his last year at its helm, AmCham said Friday. “He will move to the private sector and will begin an association in this […]
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