OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2008. On January 14, 2008, a session of “Mercury Club” was held at the International Trade Center, attended by Russia’s government officials and representatives of the scientific and business communities. President of the RF CCI Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeni Primakov made a presentation focusing on Russia’s economic and political development in 2007.

In view of the RF CCI president, a number of characteristic features of this course could be singled out in Russia’s economy.

"First, it is the high dynamics of this country’s development that considerably exceeds the rates of development of the global economy. The global GDP grew by 46.4% over the past 9 years, while in Russia that figure amounted to 80%. By the rate of increase of the GDP Russia has significantly outdone the United States, Japan and the European Union as a whole.

"Investments in fixed assets grew by 20% in 2007,and direct foreign investment nearly doubled. However, with an eye to keeping the course at the increase of Russia’s share in the global GDP it is necessary to overcome the fixed notion of the government’s financiers that the transfer of the economy onto the innovation tracks would slow down Russia’s economic growth. Chinese developments refute this argument, as both processes there are developing side by side and quite fast.

"Second, the course pursued by this country is characterised by the growth of the state’s participation in the development of the manufacturing sector while retaining its regulatory function at the macroeconomic level. Thanks to that, Ebgeni Primakov argues, inflation has been kept in check and this country’s gold and hard currency reserves were growing. The partnership of private business and the state was becoming an efficient mechanism of development of the Russian economy."

Evgeni Primakov is confident that the participation of the state in the production sector in the present-day conditions does not throw the country backwards. Only the state proves to be the only entity capable of ensuring the departure of the economy from a lopsided raw-materials orientation.

"Third, the course pursued in this country aims to ensure a transfer of the economy onto the innovation path. Unfortunately, implementation of many planned measures to stimulate the innovation model of development was postponed for 2008-2010. Such slow progress is inadmissible. Russia has 5 times more scientists and researchers per 1,000 population than China and 2.5 times more graduates of technology colleges and universities, but the Chinese share of the global market of science-intensive products has reached 6%, whereas Russia’s share is only about 0.5%.

"Fourth, the profits we earned thanks to high world’s prices of raw materials we export are now being used for Russia’s multi-lateral development. It is expedient to diversify our economy rather than put huge incomes away in a thriftbox. Economic hardships we may face in the future would be easier to overcome to us as a great power on an equal footing with the world’s leaders. The subdivision of the Stabilisation Fund into the Reserve Fund and the Fund for National Welfare to be effected starting from February of 2008, is a correct decision and a proper direction, Evgeni Primakov stressed. But he argued that the Reserve Fund was excessive (10% of the GDP).

"Finally, fifth: the current economic course is characterised by orientation towards the rise of living standards. This is a very important issue, taking into account that we had to begin from a “low start”, when the aggregate losses of the Russian economy during the implementation of the liberal reforms in 1992-1998 were more than two times higher than the losses the Soviet economy incurred in the years of World War II."