| Officials reproach investment experts Russian financial and investment analysts go from mistake to mistake - their use of standard approaches developed by world practice is not suitable for analyzing the market environment that has not yet developed in Russia. This opinion was expressed yesterday by the head of the presidential expert department, Arkady Dvorkovich, during the federal investment forum. His colleague from the Ministry of Finance, Alexey Savatyugin, believes that it’s all about qualified personnel, independent of the public activities of private companies.
According to Mr. Dvorkovich, unlike their Western colleagues, Russian analysts do not have at their disposal the results of many years of observations and a statistical base that has been formed over decades. Annoying gaps in the information flow have arisen as a result of fundamental changes in the socio-economic system. Analysis of inflation processes based on standard methods that take into account the volume of the stabilization fund or gold and foreign exchange reserves is superficial, taking into account Russian specifics. The same goes for conclusions about the impact of meat or gasoline prices on inflation growth. A more significant factor for Russia in this sense is the dynamics of the money supply. However, Mr. Dvorkovich said, financial analysts will soon have the opportunity to uniquely combine the macro experience of the world economy with the micro experience of the Russian economy. This will happen in 2006, when domestic companies switch to mandatory reporting according to international standards.
Director of the Department of Financial Policy of the Ministry of Finance Alexey Savatyugin explained the weakness of Russian economic analysis in his own way. In his opinion, domestic analysts are divided into two groups: those working in private companies and independent ones. The forecasts of private analysts, especially those who communicate with corporate clients or speak to the general public, raise questions of professional ethics or qualifications. As for independent experts, recently there has been a flow of them from non-state centers to government agencies. This, according to Mr. Savatyugin, is both good, since it increases the intellectual level of decisions taken by the authorities, and bad, since independent economic analysis suffers.
However, both officials agreed on one thing. Arkady Dvorkovich noted that financial experts in Russia have to take on functions unusual for them: analyzing risks associated with political and judicial decisions. Analysts are not given the opportunity to know how the state will behave. Alexey Savatyugin, in turn, said that normal analysis in Russia is difficult due to unexpected legislative or security initiatives by the authorities. If things continue like this, he noted, then the main disciplines for analysts will not be statistics or economic theory, but “hermeneutics, mantics and exegesis” - to interpret the will of the gods, guess about the future and interpret sayings. Igor POLISCHUK |
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