Translated material
Soviet style
What businessmen told Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama
One of the important developments in Russian-American relations in the near future, it seems, will be the preparation and signing of a new agreement in the field of trade and economic cooperation. This was discussed at a meeting between Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama with entrepreneurs from the two countries on Thursday - the last day of the Russian president's visit to the United States.In the last year, when preparations were underway for the signing of the New START Treaty, expert comments often boiled down to the fact that the potential of the “reset” was limited to issues of global security and foreign policy coordination, while there were no prospects for a serious expansion of economic ties. On Thursday, a meeting of entrepreneurs from the two countries took place in Washington, after which the presidents also met with them. A significant result of the event can be considered the fact that Barack Obama was quite friendly towards businessmen and - a rare case - did not call anyone “fat cats” or accuse anyone of losing a sense of responsibility to society.
But in a certain sense, these were precisely the topics that businessmen discussed among themselves before the presidents joined them. As one of the meeting participants says, Viktor Vekselberg immediately invited his colleagues to talk frankly and discuss the line of conduct taken by the American authorities in connection with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico . Of course, it would be naive to count on complete frankness in such a matter, but Chevron CEO John Watson spoke quite remarkably about the prospects for regulating the industry. He said that Vladimir Putin's just support for the Chevron-Rosneft joint project suggests that offshore production as a business is here to stay. As you know, a week and a half ago, Mr. Watson and Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov, in the presence of Vladimir Putin, signed an agreement on the development of the Shatskogo Shaft field on the Black Sea shelf. At the same time, experts note that geological exploration work (which will be financed by Chevron) will be complicated by the great depths of the areas with supposed oil deposits. Mr Watson said at the signing: “Chevron was chosen because of its environmental credentials and the Prime Minister has made it clear that he will pay close attention to environmental standards. “I have made a commitment that we will conduct development with Rosneft at the highest level of safety.”
Anatoly Chubais, to whom the floor passed, of course, spoke about innovation. In his characteristic high style, he said that Russia had made a historical choice for itself - to develop the economy along the path of innovation, and everyone should proceed from this fact. True, one of the American participants in the meeting, who turned out to be savvy in matters of economic policy of the Russian government, reminded Mr. Chubais that the increase in the Unified Social Tax only contributes to the fact that talented Russian programmers are leaving even for Ukraine. The country's chief nanotechnologist did not dignify this remark with a response.
For Barack Obama as a politician, such details are not very important. He began his speech at a meeting with businessmen by thanking Mr. Medvedev “for his leadership, especially his vision of an innovative Russia that modernizes its economy, deepening economic ties between our two countries.”
The US President acknowledged that “despite the growth of trade in recent years, the trade and economic relationship between the United States and Russia still contains untapped potential”: “Our trade with Russia last year was about the same level as our trade with Thailand, where the population is half that of Russia. There is a lot of work to be done, obviously, which is why part of the reset of relations between Russia and the United States required the creation of a US-Russian Partnership Commission and a Presidential Commission to explore a whole range of new opportunities, including economic partnerships that create jobs and opportunity for our peoples.” Mr. Obama stressed that the assembled entrepreneurs are “a great example of shared prosperity, joint creation of high-tech jobs.” He noted that thanks to these projects, new jobs are being created for both Americans and Russians in aviation, astronautics, the auto industry, the financial sector, high technology, and especially highlighted the deal for the purchase of 50 Boeing 737 aircraft by Russian Technologies for a total of 4 billion dollars. Perhaps the US President is not aware that the deal, in which Russian Technologies even made a deposit, has its own characteristics: the state corporation announced that it was buying aircraft in the interests of Aeroflot, while the airline fulfilled its needs for evaluates new airliners much more modestly.
Of course, the topic of the innovation center in Skolkovo could not be avoided. Barack Obama endorsed the project: “When he (Dmitry Medvedev - Ed. ) presented his vision of modernization and innovation in Russia, including his initiatives to create a Russian Silicon Valley in the suburbs of Moscow, American companies and universities were among the first to invested in this effort." “I am glad that some of you will work on this initiative,” he addressed his compatriots, among whom there were indeed enthusiasts of the “City of the Sun” near Moscow.
“I am very grateful to those American businessmen who have expressed their desire to work along this line (at Skolkovo - Ed. ) and have already made a number of responsible decisions for themselves. We appreciate this, and, of course, we will think about creating the most comfortable and most protected conditions for this work,” Dmitry Medvedev promised for his part, once again recalling that in order to start this project we had to go “to a rather unprecedented measure in Russia" in the form of the creation of a special legal regime, providing for "a number of separate tax breaks and separate regimes that will create better working conditions."
The Russian president noted that the potential for cooperation lies not only in attracting American investment in the Russian economy: “Obviously, we would like the volume of both American investment in the Russian economy and Russian investment in the American economy to grow, because there cannot be One way roads. The economy is global, and we must create reasonable rules of the game and help each other in overcoming all kinds of obstacles.”
However, there are obstacles in overcoming which Moscow can only help morally. “President Obama is now doing a lot of work (on reforming legislation - Ed. ), we empathize with this process, we understand how difficult this work is, especially since any decisions always have those who are in favor and those who are who criticizes these decisions. But it is obvious that the global economy and the world in general have changed, and we will have to change the rules of the game to a certain extent, despite the fact that everyone present in this room is committed to modern economic approaches and committed to the principles of the free market.” Having sympathized with Barack Obama, Mr. Medvedev expressed confidence that “it is precisely taking into account the global nature of economic processes that our cooperation should develop year by year.”
Further, the meeting was held behind closed doors, but the content of the conversation became known to Vremya Novostei from its participants. Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld told the presidents how the discussion had gone before their appearance, without, however, focusing on the problems of deep-sea oil drilling. He noted that entrepreneurs feel a political “reset” and the climate for doing business is improving. For his part, he said that Alcoa had created 4 thousand jobs in Russia and that constant access to the president would make investment prospects even better.
Viktor Vekselberg raised the topic of the interstate legal framework, recalling that at the moment there is only a Soviet-era trade agreement. With legal support, the head of the board of directors of Renova believes, progress in economic ties would be much more significant. As head of the Skolkovo Foundation, he thanked Mr. Medvedev for his support and asked Mr. Obama not to leave this project unattended either.
The longest speech (the meeting lasted less than an hour in total) was the speech of the head of Russian Technologies, Sergei Chemezov. He spoke about the successes of the entrusted corporation in a variety of areas (fortunately there are indeed many areas), including a deal with Boeing, a 5-year contract for the supply of titanium, etc. Not everyone from the American side managed to speak, but everyone - the head of Deere and Co. Samuel Allen managed to please everyone that Russia is regaining its position as the world's largest power and, if necessary, will be able to feed the whole world, and the head of International Paper, John Faraci, talked about new investments in Russia.
Summing up, Dmitry Medvedev agreed that remaining with the Soviet agreement base in the field of trade is not suitable and a new agreement needs to be prepared. Barack Obama did not express his opinion on this matter.