OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2011. An enlarged Meeting of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation was held at the World Trade Center on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Heads and Members of the RF CCI Board, Heads of territorial chambers and members of the business community took part in the Meeting.

RF CCI President Sergey Katyrin made the introductory speech. He welcomed the Meeting participants and guests and gave the floor to Vladimir Putin.

The Russian Government Chairman said that the modern organizational and legal model of the RF CCI was developed 20 years ago, in October 1991. Through all these years the RF CCI system has been actively promoting private initiative, civilized relations between market participants and efficient communication between the business community and the State and has been assisting in the formation of the national socioeconomic agenda jointly with other business unions and organizations.

It is very important that we have a common understanding of tasks and a common vision of the future of the country and its economy, Vladimir Putin said. The Russian economy is due to be transformed drastically within the next few years. It is necessary to create additional points of growth in regions and new industries and to offer high-tech commodities and services and products with a high added value to the world market. Public-private partnership is bound to become a key element and a mechanism of the achievement of development goals.

The 34 committees of the RF CCI unite over 2,500 top managers, doctors and candidates of science – a wonderful and very powerful resource that must be in demand, Vladimir Putin stressed. A transition to the federal contract system is ahead, which will require a broad use of services of independent expert organizations. The RF CCI is highly experienced in that.

Vladimir Putin touched upon the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Common Free Market Zone will start to function in 2012, and the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union will come next. That is a higher, more advanced level of integration, he said.

The promotion of foreign economic activity is a traditional forte of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vladimir Putin stressed. The broad network of  the RF CCI’s representative offices abroad  is rather efficient.

The issue of commodity origin certificates is an element of real support to domestic exporters provided by the Chamber. Last year alone the CCI issued over 0.5 million such documents. Actually, it performed the function of the state on a top professional level, Vladimir Putin said.

The Government Head expressed his assuredness that the enlarged Meeting of the RF CCI Board would discuss impediments to the dynamic growth of various economic sectors, including small and medium business to which the CCI gave much attention.

After the speech of the Prime Minister, RF CCI President Sergey Katyrin delivered a report, “On the Work of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the Solution of Key Problems of the Russian Economic Development.”

Over the 20 years of its existence the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation acquired certain experience of interaction with the legislative and executive authorities of all levels, Sergey Katyrin said. In the past two years alone the Chamber made a public analysis and submitted to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation constructive amendments to 144 draft laws. This work will continue in cooperation with the new State Duma. Our representatives became candidates running on the United Russia ticket within the framework of the All-Russia People’s Front, Sergey Katyrin said.

Chambers of commerce and industry in regions and municipalities are actively forming a system for constant monitoring of the application of effective laws jointly with the local administrations and civil society institutions.

Representatives of chambers of commerce and industry took an active position in the drafting of the Program of People’s Initiatives and discussions of the draft Strategy 2020. We think that strategic guidelines must be supplemented with a roadmap, i.e. a program of practical measures, which would form a vector of the advancement to the objectives, Sergey Katyrin said. There is a number of pressing problems that must be solved, such as the drafting of a state industrial policy and the fostering of the machine building industry, the drawing of investments, the protection and support of Russian business abroad, the promotion of high-tech products and services on foreign markets, especially in CIS Member States, the solution of transport infrastructure problems, the energy supply to enterprises and tariff regulation, the development of small and medium business, and, finally, the use of the potential of the system of chambers of commerce and industry of Russia in the interest of the national economic development. 

Sergey Katyrin said, in particular, that the municipal authorities have practically no interest in the development of small business. Unless the bulk or even the whole of small business taxes is paid to municipalities, it will be hardly possible to ensure the rapid development of small business and to strengthen the municipal authorities for the complete fulfillment of their commitments. Another pressing subject is the bill introducing the patent system as an independent special tax regime and cancelling the unified imputed income tax in 2014. That is a step in the right direction but the bill must have the following provisions: a broader list of activities eligible for the patent taxation system, personnel enlarged to 15 people, the maximal annual income enlarged to 800,000 rubles and some others.

A large step forward in property support to small business was the adoption of the Federal Law on Preferential Privatization in 2008, which gave the right to bona fide tenants to buy at a market value the space they rent for more than two years. At the same time, the validity of this law was limited to July 1, 2013. It would be right to cancel the deadline and to set the minimal period of deferred payment to five years.

Sergey Katyrin thinks it necessary to use more actively the Chamber’s potential in the interest of the Russian economic development, in particular, for upgrading state procurements and fighting corruption in that sphere, and for developing foreign economic activity; for instance, some of such functions may be attributed to chambers of commerce and industry in regions. The RF CCI is intensively interacting with existent and emerging development institutes, such as the Direct Investments Fund, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, the Agency for Insurance of Export Loans and Investments and the Russian Venture Company. The Russian Economic Development Ministry and territorial chambers have successfully opened regional offices of the Russian network of Euro Info Correspondence Centers – a specialized network of the European Commission promoting products of small and medium business.

Territorial chambers are ready to coordinate exhibitions and fairs in regions. The chambers in Krasnodar, Belgorod, Vyatka and some others are already doing that. There are some restrictions though, such as the absence of modern exhibition grounds in regions. It would be expedient to draft a program of public-private partnership for the creation of congress and exhibition infrastructure in Russian regions. In the opinion of Sergey Katyrin, the whole work, from the drafting of plans of national exhibitions abroad to the choice of their organizers, the formation of the exhibitions and their business and cultural programs, must involve representatives of the exhibition business and the RF CCI.

Sergey Katyrin proposed that the RF CCI should accredit all foreign legal entities in Russia, while the Russian Justice Ministry should stop performing that function as peripheral.

Chambers of commerce and industry target their huge potential at the building of a modern and innovative economy of Russia, Sergey Katyrin concluded.

Head of the RF CCI Committee for Industrial Development Valery Platonov, Vyatka CCI President Nikolai Lipatnikov, JSC Russkaya Kozha General Director Alexander Rolgeizer and some others took the floor next.

They touched upon the economic diversification with the rapid growth of processing industries, the need for indicative planning (Valery Platonov), a complex relationship between business and Russian Railways, including problems with the provision of timber enterprises with rolling stock (Nikolai Lipatnikov), competitiveness of domestic producers and the effects of the energy market, customs and tariff regulation on them (Alexander Rolgeizer).

The Meeting participants discussed integration on the post-Soviet space, public-private partnership mechanisms and their role in the national economic modernization, normative and legal regulation of business, the tax policy, the reduction of administrative barriers and the transfer of certain state functions to public organizations.

The Russian Prime Minister answered a number of questions. In his closing speech he stressed that certain results had been achieved in practically every sphere despite a large number of hitherto unsolved problems.

The Board discussed regulations for the coordination of candidatures for the sole executive body of chambers of commerce and industry, regulations of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation,  the participation of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the establishment of commercial and non-profit organizations and some organizational issues.