The 'Mercury Club' was created 10 years ago on the initiative of the Russian Trade and Industry Chamber to support informal ties between the government administration and entrepreneurs. The club gives them a basis to work out various social and economic problems.
Not long ago the 'Mercury Club' summed up the results of 2011. According to the head of the board of the club’s administration, Yevgeny Primakov (ex-PM of Russia), the main event in the year’s economic life was the "course of modernization" declared by President Medvedev. Of course, this strategy doesn’t imply simply adopting western countries’ achievements, as Russia is not yet ready to become a post-industrial society, thus renouncing industrial production in favor of science and services. Instead of ‘leaping’ into a post-industrial state, Russia should rather follow the ‘re-industrialization’ strategy offered by Vladimir Putin.
For now, Russian industry is in a deplorable state, and the most noticeable indicator of this is a long series of failures in the aero-space industry, which has always been a matter of pride for the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, so the revival of industry is urgent for Russia’s healthy development in the future.
Mr Primakov stressed that Russia should adopt not only western technological and scientific achievements, but also the breakthroughs and positive trends of Soviet science that have been unjustly forgotten. Another important aspect of Russia’s economic revival is the overcoming of its dependence on exports of raw materials.
However, the principle problem that hampers the healthy development of Russia’s economy is the remnant of the corrupt practices of the 1990s, the merging of administrative functionaries with business circles. The level of corruption is still high, despite all the measures taken. According to Mr Primakov, the measures are simply inefficient: instead of monitoring a functionary’s income, the state should monitor their expenses (and their family ties to major local enterprises as well). And of course Russia should finally ratify the UN Convention on Corruption: one of its clauses, touching upon the issue of ‘unlawful enrichment’, remains unratified by the Russian parliament. In addition, parliamentary control over executive power in Russia is somewhat rudimentary. Mr Primakov stressed that the recent dismissal of a number of high-ranking state functionaries was justified, but the problem itself won’t go away, no matter how many corrupt administrators are dismissed and put on trail, unless the whole system is reformed.
In his address Mr Primakov also touched upon the political results of the year. The main event in the political life of Russia in 2011 was undoubtedly the parliamentary election. Its main result is the evident drop in the “United Russia” party’s popularity (despite all the advantages it had during this campaign the party lost 15% of its supporters), which can be seen not only at the federal level, but in the outcome of local elections as well. Even though the ruling party won the majority of parliamentary seats, it lost its ‘constitutional majority’.
Mr Primakov said that the popularity of left-centrist forces is growing among the electorate, which can be seen in the increase of popular support for the Russian Communist Party and “A Just Russia”. As for the upcoming presidential elections, Primakov suggested that Vladimir Putin is the only viable candidate, even though all the others have their advantages as well. This candidate has already shown himself as most efficient in foreign and domestic policy. Of course, as with each and every political figure, he has made a number of mistakes, but, as Yevgeny Primakov said, “one shouldn’t turn the normal stress of an election run into an anti-Putin campaign,” According to him, those who try to turn popular disappointment into a devastating ‘color revolution’ draw their ‘inspiration’ from foreign intelligence.
As for the prognosis of upcoming world economic recession, Primakov disproved it as unfeasible, as well as the idea of creating a World Finance Center in Moscow. He also said that Russia’s integration projects, such as the Customs Union and the Eurasian Union, should learn from the EU’s mistakes and be ready to face similar decisions.
By VK
