PM: Russian govt to aim at improving lives of people in next 5 yrs

SOCHI, Sep 30 (PRIME) -- The Russian government’s economic agenda for the next five years will be aimed at growth and improvement the standard of living, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday at a Sochi international investment forum.

“By assuming authoritative powers, we have undertaken the obligation to make everything possible in the coming political cycle to ensure economic growth…and, let’s say directly, to improve the lives of people. The economic agenda for the next five years will be aimed at this,” he said.

“We have obviously worked on that before. But the current issue is larger than just stimulation measures for the economy or good-quality social policy. Now there is demand in Russia for real changes in the economic and social environment, and authorities have the task to respond to it. It should be a fast and resultative answer,” he said.

He added that the government will fulfill all social liabilities and increase effectiveness of budget spending.

BUSINESS SUPPORT

The Russian government also plans to allocate 20 billion rubles more on the development of the small and medium businesses in 2017.

“We have to help small business occupy market niches and also to extend their access to procurements of large corporations. Regions should develop their own infrastructure for support of small and medium enterprises, a network of leasing centers that should lend equipment. We plan to spend about 20 billion rubles on that next year,” he said.

Medvedev is against multiple checks at businesses by watchdogs, and the government has to change the system of control to make life of business easier. “We should control only…places that have real risks for safety or health of people, not completely all the economy. We should not do ‘carpet bombing’ of business with packages of different regulations,” he said.

Russia should also work on its administrative system, as many useful initiatives usually can’t break through administrative walls and barriers of bureaucracy. “Sometimes it is impossible for us to push many good initiatives, either economic or social through …due to barriers created by the state machine…It is also obvious that some laws are not working properly,” he said.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Russia should convert political stability into an efficient development of the national economy.

“In my recent article I pointed out that the economy has become politicized, which is not a good factor when it happens on an international level, as it makes restoration of market relations difficult. The clear example in our country is the so-called anti-Russian sanctions. But even under these conditions we should convert political stability in our country into an effective development of the national economy,” Medvedev said.

The macroeconomic conditions in Russia are also changing in the right way, and credits for small businesses should become cheaper. “This obviously depends on macroeconomic conditions due to understandable reasons, but conditions are changing in the right way, due to our consolidated efforts in this direction with the central bank,” he added.

(63.1581 rubles – U.S. $1)

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