Vremya Novostei
Government to draft different kind of budget
Judging by the finalized social and economic development forecast for 2011-2013, approved by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, the Russian government expects federal income to grow significantly in the next three years.
In his opening speech at a meeting on budgetary planning for the upcoming fiscal year and planning period, the prime minister cited a lower financial burden on individuals and businesses among the budget priority policies aimed at supporting the economic revival. To achieve this, the government will continue to try to keep tariffs down.
The most important change in the budget policy for the coming year results from a decision made in 2009 to overhaul the federal budget planning from 2011. The new budget will comprise a set of government programs. "The idea is to use federal money more efficiently and effectively, not to disperse it across a range of expenditure items but to make significant investments in the most crucial programs in education, healthcare, housing, social policy, defense and security and other areas of government responsibility," Putin said. Each government program will include criteria by which to evaluate both its effectiveness and the responsibility of the agencies concerned.
After the meeting, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said a list of 37 programs was as good as approved. "In regional development, we have included East Siberia and the Baikal Region as a separate program," he said. There may be a special program to finance the country's forestry sector. The final list of state programs will be discussed at the September 23 government meeting.
The budgetary planning commission also adjusted the key figures for the next three years. First, Russia will see a significant increase in revenues, up 226 billion rubles on the previous forecast of 8.5 trillion for 2011, an extra 371 billion rubles on top of the 9.137 trillion forecast for 2012, and up 395 billion on the 9.98 trillion forecast for 2013. Oil revenues will grow 87 billion rubles in 2011, 301 billion in 2012, and 358 billion in 2013, according to the finance minister. However, expenditure will also grow - by more than 1 trillion rubles over the next three years.
The commission also approved a plan to increase state borrowing in 2011-2013 by 98.7 billion rubles. "We are mainly planning to borrow domestically," Kudrin said, adding that Russia could also start increasing its foreign debt as early as this year.
Izvestia
Young Russians hungry for success
What are the most prestigious jobs for young people in Russia? Maxim Grigoryev, director of the Democracy Studies Foundation (FIPD), speaks about recent polls that focused on the presumption that young people mostly want to work at energy giant Gazprom, the Interior Ministry or other state-controlled agencies.
Discussions were based on the results of a poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). The FOM mostly polled high school graduates, while the FIPD focused on university graduates.
The FIPD poll showed that only 8% of respondents want to become civil servants, 18% would like to work in business, 7% want freelance careers, and 7% think they might take up research.
Unlike the results of the FOM poll, only a small number of the young people surveyed by the FIPD said they want to work in the presidential administration and none of the more than 500 university graduates want a job in the Interior Ministry.
The differences between the results of the two polls can be explained by the fact that the FOM's respondents are younger (about 16 years old) and more romantic, and therefore would like to hold a job close to the president's team. Also, 64% have a positive view of the president's work.
The FOM said it cannot explain why 10% of the respondents want to work in the police forces.
Most respondents to the FOM survey wanted to work at a state-controlled company, such as Gazprom, Sberbank, Rosneft or LUKoil. Figures could be disputed, but it is a fact that these companies hold magnetic attraction for young people. This fact has engendered a wave of arguments, according to which young people are seeking civil jobs so as to do nothing while raking in huge bribes.
But there is a simpler explanation: the above companies have the largest market value and it is not surprising that young people want to work for the largest and most successful employers.
State-controlled companies are also among the best in Norway, such as energy producer Statoil (majority owned by the state), generating company Statnett (wholly owned by the state) and high-speed airport rail company Flytoget (wholly state-owned).
It is unlikely that bribes are the main reason for these companies' high ranking among the young people seeking employment. Why should we suspect our young people of such dishonorable motives?
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Officers and computers
Two apparently unrelated events which took place in early September are linked with the statements and actions of President Dmitry Medvedev regarding the Russian Armed Forces.
On September 1, the Russian head of state addressed the student body of the Presidential Cadet Academy in Orenburg in the Volga Federal District, advising the younger generation to study computers which have now become "no less important weapons than the assault rifle and the tank."
Several days later, Medvedev signed a decree approving the Armed Forces' tables of organization closely resembling that of the U.S. and NATO Armed Forces.
Medvedev said anyone lacking modern computer skills "will simply be unable to fit in a new world ... will fail to become a defender of the Fatherland." The president's statement implies that relatively few conscripts and officers can operate modern electronic hardware and software.
Moreover, the prospects for the military's digital reform seem bleak because Russia has failed to create the required material and educational base.
The reconfiguration of the Russian army along Western lines implies relevant troop control, data collection, storage and protection systems, as well as the elaboration of military operations strategies and concepts and those dealing with other army prerogatives.
Military laboratories are the main driving force of technical progress in many Eastern and Western countries. The army strives to recruit the best IT specialists and to sign contracts with the most advanced production facilities.
This makes it possible to promptly borrow all state-of-the-art know-how and to introduce it in a military context. This concerns fostering the creation of technology and products.
Assuming that Russia can no longer catch up with the world and launch the production of sophisticated weapons, it has no choice but to skillfully use its available inventions and products. Software is essential for any hardware.
Any computer lacking an operating system (OS), or software consisting of programs and data, is just a hi-tech toy. Apart from Windows, there are other specialized operating systems which often cost more than the hardware itself. And the developers of this software are absolutely priceless.
Russia can train IT specialists, including those for the Armed Forces, at specialized universities. Programmers are an elite class requiring talent and special training. Although it is pointless to establish a military programming academy, the Armed Forces can recruit civilian specialists on a selective basis.
RBC Daily
Lower limit of punishment likely to be scrapped
Prisoners with serious health issues should be released early and sentences for economic and petty crimes should be abandoned altogether, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov believes. He presented his initiatives during Government Hour in the lower house of Russia's parliament on Wednesday.
"We should drastically alter court practices and use suspended or alternative methods of punishment that involve no imprisonment," he said. According to Konovalov, if economic crime offenders are used for forced labor, it will have a positive effect on road building, forestry and farming. The minister also called for wider use of suspended sentences for prisoners who feel remorse for their crimes.
A second draft of ministry initiatives concerns prisoners with grave illnesses. Following the deaths of legal expert Sergei Magnitsky and businesswoman Vera Trifonova at pre-trial detention centers, the Ministry has had to plead innocence on several occasions. "We are completing the drafting of a law that will put people in pretrial isolation cells on the same footing as those serving sentences in places of detention," Konovalov said. This will enable people suffering from diseases to seek release from pre-trial centers and prisons.
But the most revolutionary of the liberal proposals revealed on Wednesday by the Ministry is one to abolish the lower limit of punishment envisaged by the Criminal Code. "Since the Soviet times most sanctions under criminal law have had both lower and upper limits, "Konovalov said. "It is wise to give up the lower limit because this will give our courts more options." In the minister's view, in a country claiming to be democratic, courts of law as decision-making bodies cannot be told how to act and behave.
"That idea is sound save for a few points," believes Viktor Zhuikov, a former deputy chairman of the Supreme Court. "Previously the Interior Ministry propounded the opposite idea: to fight corruption by introducing strictly defined sanctions for such crimes. But a court must always have the power of discretion. Sometimes opposite punishments may be required for two offenders committing one and the same offence if special circumstances are taken into account." Lawyer Igor Kustov disagrees: in Russia today, he says, officials, law enforcement agencies and businesspeople able to bribe judges get the most lenient penalties.
Vedomosti
Improbable inflation of Russian apples, potatoes
Consumer prices rose 0.2% in the week beginning August 29, the state statistics committee said. Inflation has remained flat at this level since late July and even slowed down to 0.1% in the last week of August due to a seasonal drop in fruit and vegetable prices. However, as September came, prices went up again at a rate of 0.2% a week, with apples and potatoes in the lead. Buckwheat prices soared, eggs showed a record growth, and sunflower oil prices began a steep climb.
"This is crazy," said Oksana Osipova from the development center at the Higher School of Economics, adding that there is no reason for fruit and vegetable prices to rise at this time of the year. They are raising prices simply because other foodstuffs go up, she said.
Apples are as strategic as potatoes, President Dmitry Medvedev joked after personally inspecting the potato crop failure and an abundant apple harvest in the Voronezh Region.
In July and August, milling wheat prices went up 60%, and fodder wheat 70%. Rye prices tripled, and fodder barley prices increased by 140%. Sunflower oil prices rose 40%, Andrei Sizov Jr., managing director of SovEcon agricultural analysts, said, adding that the drought had affected oil bearing crops, which pushed up the prices of cooking oil, sauces, mayonnaise and fodder. More expensive fodder is the reason why egg prices went up as well, Sizov said.
Egg prices always rise in mid-August, but this year the growth is sharper because of fodder, said Yury Abgaryan, deputy director general of the Aksai Poultry Farm. Retailers buy eggs for 33-35 rubles for a carton of ten, up from 22-26 rubles. "Producer prices will probably decrease slightly after some time, but retail prices might not even reflect the drop," Abgaryan suggested cautiously.
Beef, which started going up in later July at 0.1% a week, surged 0.2% in the first week of September. Producers entirely dependent on grain purchases will have no choice but to raise prices, said Miratorg representative Dmitry Lgovskikh.
This has nothing to do with fodder, argued Sergei Yushin, head of the National Meat Association. They slaughter animals for meat when they are several years old, so the fodder price rises of the past two month could not have had any significant effect. The more likely reason is the rise of foreign markets: imported meat accounts for 70%-80% of demand in big Russian cities, and for 40% across the country.
In Russia, the August rise in prices on main farm products was 15% lower than in the rest of the world, but, as imports account for 30%-40% of the Russian food market, domestic prices will continue rising, Osipova predicted.
The price rise can be partly explained by a chain reaction: when some prices go up, other producers want to make more money too, said Lgovskikh.
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MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti)
