Putin: Russia should improve business climate further

MOSCOW, Dec 3 (PRIME) -- Russia should further improve its business climate as the freedom of entrepreneurship is “the most economically and socially viable question,” President Vladimir Putin told the parliament Thursday.

“We should further improve the trust between the authorities and the business, improve the business climate in the country. This year we have generally fulfilled implementation of plans earmarked by the national entrepreneurship initiative. The dynamics is good, but we should not stop,” he said.

The government together with the agency for strategic initiatives and business unions should continue the system-wide work for improvement of conditions for business in Russia and track law enforcement at the local level, Putin said. The government and business circles should submit their suggestions for a decrease of administrative control over business by July 2016.

“Polls show that businessmen see no improvement in activities of control and supervision authorities…A whole army of supervisors still messes up the work of law-abiding businesses,” he said.

“It does not mean that there should be no control. Of course, there should be supervision, but I ask the government’s commission on the administrative reform together with business unions to submit certain suggestions for the abolishment of excessive and overlapping functions of supervising authorities by July 1, 2016,” he said.

He also asked the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, to support the Supreme Court’s suggestion to make tax crimes an administrative violation, not a criminal one. The law should be harsh to those who commit violent crimes, but ‘it should be humane to those who misstep,” he said.

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