Almost two thirds of Russians (62%) are confident that it is impossible in Russia to run a honest business, although 34% of Russians take the opposite position, according to the results of the poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM).
According to 'pessimists', major obstacles to doing business are high taxes (25%), bureaucracy (22%) and corruption (9%).
Social attitudes to entrepreneurship as a profession has significantly improved: every tenth survey participant said that he has own business, whereas in 1991 there were only 2% of such respondents, Interfax reports.
A quarter of the respondents (25%) want to have their own business, whereas almost two-thirds of Russians (63%) would not want to do business.
The vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations Alexander Safonov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the attitude of Russians towards business is influenced by the memory of how risky it was in the 1990s. "Mass business is not large corporations, but small and medium-sized enterprises, where less than 11 million people are employed. If young people see that small businesses face very big problems, then the prospect of engaging in such business cannot be attractive," he explained.
"If we take the example of the German industry's success, the percentage of GDP formed by small and medium enterprises in Germany is 70% - this is the indicator of the achievements of an economically developed country. If we strive for this, first, we can achieve the necessary number of effective owners. Second, it will be a large, real platform for innovation. Third, the possibility of fair competition. In the end, it will lead to the formation of the middle class," the vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations said.
"Small and medium businesses are the main directions of the country's development. Being successful is impossible without it, because according to more than a hundred years of theory and world practice, any monopoly is ultimately leads the state and itself to degradation," Alexander Safonov concluded.
