Federation Council proposes to reform Russia's economic policy

Today, the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, Sergei Kalashnikov, and a member of the Federation Council Committee for Defense and Security, Vyacheslav Shtyrov, presented a report on the Russian economy's developmental pathway, prepared by the Interim Federation Council Commission on monitoring of economic development, the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reports.

The senators stressed that the main task for today is to develop Russia's economic development strategy, which requires radical changes in the current economic model.

Vyacheslav Shtyrov drew attention that it's Russia's global goals that should be the starting point in the government's economic policy, rather than the budget. "That is, firstly, we determine a goal and then we form the budgetary and economic policy," he said, adding that the current model of capitalism developed in Russia in the early 1990s.

Sergey Kalashnikov, in turn, pointed out that in order to promote the business, it is necessary to bring stability in its relations with the state. "Business is frightened of constant changes in the legislation. The stability can be achieved, when the law on the strategic planning will come into force," the senator said, proposing to establish a clear financial support of the authorities in Russia's subjects and introduce reasonable currency regulation.

One of the directions of the new economic policy is modernization, but in order to launch the modernization processes, "there should be a state body, which will deal with forecasting of scientific and technological development of the country," Kalashnikov explained.

There is an urgent need to increase the purchasing power, as its decline doesn't help the development of the Russian economy; to increase the labor productivity; to create new high-tech jobs, ensuring high profitability," the deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy listed.

The import substitution should be export-oriented. "This requires the support of export and infrastructure," Sergey Kalashnikov said.

Finally, it is necessary to identify the sources of effective business financing. "The current banking system does not solve the problem of financing the production. At the same time, the government has a lot of opportunities to create banks which will deal exclusively with the investment banking system," he proposed.

Sergey Kalashnikov said, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, about new points of economic growth in Russia, stressing that there are a lot of them. "Roughly speaking, at any point of our flat landscape we can dig a hole, plant a tree and gather fruits. But first, we need to use our geographical location associated with the development of transport infrastructure, as any major projects are the engines of economic development," he noted.

"The second point of growth is the use of intellectual potential, which is, of course, declining now, but still remains high enough. There should be constant publications of various discoveries and possibilities in the media. The third point of growth is a judicious use of our mineral base. The UAE improved their economy due to oil, but today oil brings them no more than 17% of income - they just wisely used the money earned from oil exports," the senator pointed out.