New Testament

The President of Russia decided to provide his successors with an economic program for three terms in advance

By February next year, that is, just on the eve of the presidential elections, the Russian authorities want to have at their disposal a strategic program for the development of Russia for almost a 15-year period. President Vladimir Putin gave this instruction yesterday at a meeting with the economic bloc of the government, instructing that by this date the concept of long-term socio-economic development of the country until 2020 be adopted. Whoever becomes the third president of Russia will already have Putin's economic program. Moreover, with the current constitutional four-year presidential term, this program will be enough for not even two, but three terms. That is, according to the current Constitution, it would be enough for the fourth president.

“ We are currently working on the concept of long-term socio-economic development of the country until 2020 . We really expect a lot from this document, and therefore it is necessary not only to state our priorities for building an innovative economy, diversifying its structure, not only to outline the continuity of tasks to improve the quality of social institutions and their impact on the country’s citizens. The main thing is that the concept must give a clear answer to what methods and tools we will use to achieve these goals and move towards the stated goals,” the president said.

“I ask you to carefully consider this formulation of the issue, because by 2020 the concept should really become a guide to action for both the legislative and executive powers,” Vladimir Putin emphasized.

He acted in exactly the same way seven years ago, at the beginning of his first presidential term. Then the Center for Strategic Research prepared a development strategy for the Russian Federation until 2010 , better known as the “Gref program.” It was approved by the government in the summer of 2000, immediately after the presidential elections. The program has almost been forgotten, although many important decisions for the development of the country, such as the introduction of a flat income tax scale or jury trials, were laid down there.

“The country needs not just economic growth - it needs a new quality of growth, that is, the creation and development of modern technologies that will allow it to take its rightful place in the global division of labor. The key here is entrepreneurial initiative and the removal of artificial restrictions for its development, the creation of a favorable investment climate that will help attract domestic and foreign capital,” this is how the main goal of the 2000 strategy was formulated. Now that the economy is showing high growth rates year after year, other tasks are being prioritized.

“The goal of developing the concept is to determine ways and means to ensure a sustainable increase in the well-being of Russian citizens, strengthening national security and dynamic economic development in the long term, strengthening Russia’s position in the world community,” the new document says. Thus, by 2020, the share of the middle class should increase from 20 to 55%, while the criteria for the middle class will change. If now this is a monthly income of 20 thousand rubles, then in ten years this will already require 46 thousand rubles.

The new concept uses interesting development indicators. Thus, the number of people traveling abroad on vacation should increase from the current 54 people per thousand population to 250. 604 people out of a thousand should have a personal car, and not 180, as now.

Experts also agree with this formulation of the question. “I’m not sure that we, officials or anyone else, can now determine what will dominate the global economy in 2020 - which sector, which industry. Society must be prepared intellectually for any challenges that await us. Therefore, it is necessary to invest first of all in education, in science, in everything related to human development,” Evgeniy Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog, told Vremya Novostei.

The concept, as explained to Vremya Novostey by the Ministry of Economic Development, has already been submitted to the government and should be considered at the next cabinet meeting - November 8. True, now that the president has shown increased attention to it, it is unlikely to be accepted in its current form; in any case, revision is almost inevitable.

The previous version was prepared in July, but was heavily criticized by the expert community for being insufficiently ambitious and abstract in achieving its goals. During this time, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Andrei Belousov and Director of the Consolidated Department of Macroeconomic Forecasting Andrei Klepach held a dozen meetings with representatives of business and regions and even organized a round table. As a result, the concept has doubled in size and, as its authors claim, has become more specific.

Russia, according to the concept, in full accordance with Russian folk tales, faces three possible paths - inertial, energy-based and innovative. The first path leads to a slowdown in GDP growth to 3.2% in 2011-2020, the second will allow growth at a rate of 5.3%, and only the third allows the economy to develop truly dynamically, demonstrating an annual growth rate of 6.4%.

The measures by which it is proposed to transfer the country to an innovative path of development have long been known. Many of them are already being implemented. This is diversification of the economy, support for new technologies, improvement of the demographic situation in the country, and improvement of the quality of public services provided. “The Russian economy is overdue for a change in growth leader. The potential contribution to the acceleration of GDP of knowledge-intensive products and the “knowledge economy” at the turn of 2014-2017 may be equal to the contribution of traditional sectors and exceed the weight of the contribution of the oil and gas complex. However, the qualitative result of this sphere is much higher than its quantitative effect,” the concept says. The only question is how and to what extent all this will be realized. Thus, already in October, the presented concept was subjected to very harsh criticism at a round table of “Business Russia”, the Public Chamber and the magazine “Expert”. Participants believe that it is too reminiscent of program documents of the “late Soviet period” and looks like a concept for the development of state capitalism, while the role of medium and small businesses, which formed the basis of the well-being of all developed countries, is “not visible at all.”

Experts believe that the adoption of a new long-term development strategy for the country is another sign of continuity of political power and a symbol that after 2008 the country will develop under the supervision of Vladimir Putin. At the same time, believes Deputy General Director of the Center for Political Technologies Alexey Makarkin, “all countries that have at least minimal political stability are beginning to look at the future and think about long-term planning.” Moreover, the state is already in full swing implementing long-term projects, such as the construction of transport infrastructure or financial support for nanotechnology, says Mr. Makarkin.

Vera SITNINA, Mikhail VOROBYEV