Russian government to monitor business climate quarterly

MOSCOW. Dec 20 (Interfax) – The Russian government will monitor the implementation of roadmaps to improve the country’s business climate every quarter, Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov said Thursday at a government session.

Five roadmaps were approved and for three of them, including on customs administration, on connection to energy infrastructure and on administration in the construction sector, the deadlines for certain measures have already been reached, the minister said.

The roadmap on energy infrastructure is so far being implemented best of all, Belousov said. There are considerable differences between the Federal Customer Service and the business community concerning the customs administration plan. But progress is worst of all in the roadmap for simplifying administration procedures in construction.

A “bottleneck” in the roadmap on customs regulation is the customs information system and its integration with the information systems of other inspection bodies operating at customs. A special working meeting was held on this matter and by the end of the first quarter of 2013 this problem should be resolved and the speed of cars passing through customs checkpoints will increase substantially.

As to construction, Belousov said that of 16 measures that should have been implemented before the end of the year, federal authorities have reported the implementation of 11, but the working group says only two measures have been carried out. Any measurable progress will not be seen before the end of the first half of 2013, he said.

Belousov said it was necessary to monitor the implementation of the roadmaps not annually but quarterly.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev agreed and asked the Economic Development Ministry to continue monitoring these roadmaps.