Translated material
Deadline and cheese
The President obliged the government to adopt all technical regulations by the end of the year
This year's first meeting of the Presidential Commission on Modernization and Technological Development of the Economy was devoted to the search for optimal state policy in the field of technical regulation. On the one hand, overregulation hinders business development, and the commission was created precisely in order to remove obstacles to modernization. On the other hand, you cannot rely only on the honesty of business.Until this year, technical regulations were approved by the State Duma. The cumbersome procedure has led to the fact that to date only 15 regulations have been adopted. Thus, the adoption of one technical regulation for high-voltage equipment took five years. From now on, regulations will be approved by either the government or the Ministry of Industry and Trade, although the division of responsibility between them has not yet occurred. It turned out that it is still unclear how many regulations the Russian economy needs to be completely happy. “The numbers are constantly jumping, sometimes you need 40-50, sometimes 400,” President Dmitry Medvedev was indignant. The relevant Minister of Industry and Trade, Viktor Khristenko, did not have an exact answer to this question. “We believe that the existing 15 regulations cover 32.6% of highly hazardous products. This year it will be necessary to adopt 40 regulations, and next year another 12,” he said.
“They told me on the plane that the technical regulations for cheese require that it weigh no more than 100 grams. And if it’s more, then it’s not cheese. And cheese, apparently,” the head of state gave an example. Therefore, he is convinced, the final number of regulations should be strictly defined within a month - before February 20 - and enshrined in a document. The President proposed not to waste time on trifles, but to adopt enlarged regulations. Moreover, it soon became clear that in addition to regulations, Russia has 23,305 standards, and all of them need revision. Dmitry Medvedev was horrified by these figures, but it turned out that it was impossible to reduce them. Most likely there will be even more standards.
To the president’s direct question whether additional funding would be required for this work, Viktor Khristenko cautiously replied that “he would not want to act as a beggar for money.” “So, they will be needed,” the president concluded, and the composition of the commission on economic modernization was immediately replenished with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin.
Business, as an interested party, should take part in the development of regulations. In addition, it was decided to involve not only manufacturers, but also consumers in the process of developing technical regulations. They are no less interested in the quality of the product, but they have no opportunity to influence the process.
The head of Rostekhregulirovanie, Grigory Elkin, tried to fight off the president’s demand to take an oath that all regulations would be adopted this year. He recalled that these responsibilities are assigned to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and not to the structure subordinate to it. Dmitry Medvedev proposed to correct the situation and introduce him into the ministry. It immediately became clear that this was not necessary. Mr. Elkin took the oath, but in exchange asked to return the historical name “Rosstandart” to his department.
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs proposed creating a single accreditation body in the field of technical regulation, as well as adopting a corresponding law, Dmitry Pumpyansky, head of the RSPP Committee on Technical Regulation, Standardization and Conformity Assessment, said at a meeting of the commission. “Today there are 16 departmental accreditation systems and several hundred certification systems that are not even connected,” he said. “To gain access to the market, any new product has to be certified multiple times in different systems according to similar requirements.” At the same time, according to him, paradoxically, foreign products with foreign certificates undergo this procedure on a preferential basis.
“We propose to develop and adopt a harmonized law on accreditation, which would provide for a unified system and a single national accreditation body,” said Mr. Pumpyansky. He emphasized that simplifying the access procedure is one of the priority government tasks in the field of technical regulation, which should be solved by creating a unified national accreditation system, certification bodies and testing laboratories.
Meetings of the presidential commission on economic modernization traditionally take place not in the Kremlin, but in places where an innovation economy, rare for Russia, could potentially be found - either in Kaspersky Laboratory or at the Kurchatov Institute. This time, members of the commission gathered in Lipetsk, where one of the two industrial and production special economic zones is located. The arrival of distinguished guests coincided with the opening of a plant in the zone of the Belgian company Bekart, a manufacturer of metalcore (a special wire used in car tires to increase their strength).
There are already 17 residents working in the zone, and the total volume of declared investments amounted to 52 billion rubles. At a meeting with residents of the zone, President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized the new jobs they are creating. In total, thanks to the zone, up to 28 thousand of them may appear in the Lipetsk region.