The Liberal Renaissance

13.06.2007 (18:16)

The Petersburg economic forums are already regarded as the true indicator of political and economical course. The first plenary session (“Russia – 2020”) of the Forum showed that the policy of proper liberalization of economy and integration into the world economy will be continued.

The list of participants of the first plenary session aroused certain expectations. Among the main speakers there were director of Institute of a Transition Period Egor Gaydar and the Ex-President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn. Herman Gref and Alexey Kudrin took an active part in meeting. Anatoly Chubays arranged big press conference where he told about successes of electric power industry reform.

The main speaker, the first vice-prime Minister Sergey Ivanov declared following basic theses: “Democratic choice of people is the basis of our further life which cannot be a subject to revise”. “There is no alternative for the integration into the world community”. “Effective protection of the personality and the property, development of a civil society – this is our policy”.

Concerning development of economic processes S. Ivanov told that the state will occupy an active position in the field of optimization of market structuring, but the industrial corporations with a large share of the state capital should develop in the conditions of an internal and international competition, constantly increasing the competitiveness. “The branches closed for competition don’t make for common development”, S. Ivanov declared and specified on necessity of the further re-structuring of natural monopolies and strengthening of antimonopoly regulation.

A.Chubays presented the results of the reform of electric power industry where capitalization of assets of branch increased as a result of last structural transformations, real free market of the electric power has been put into operated. “Is it possible to determine it this or that sector is a market one or not? It’s simple: the market branch must be capable to respond to demand. Companies – market players struggle for demand, and the state monopolies destroy it. For example, roads do not meet demand and consequently there are traffic jams everywhere. Monopoly in economy is very harmful”

And Egor Gaydar warned of risks. He established, that the economy developed rapidly, big gold and exchange currency reserves were accumulated, Stabilization Fund was established, i.e. the government took lessons from the past. “But successes entails key problems”, declared E.Gaydar. In particular, he specified danger to take a great interest in growth of the government spending when the condition of a conjuncture does not designate special changes. Submitting to the influence of the populist moods in conditions of adverse demographic prospect is especially dangerous. E. Gaydar paid attention to the necessity of the strengthened attention to pension reform and creation of real fund of the future generations. He noted that the state has big reserves in the form of the property in real sector of economy which gives up to 55 % of gross domestic product. It is necessary to use it correct. Certainly, as all participants, E.Gaydar called upon to undertake everything necessary for leaving from the strongest dependence of the budget on sale of raw materials source.

As a whole discussion at plenary session and other statements during the first day of work of the Forum left sensation of “the liberal Renaissance”.

Anyway, A.Chubays finished its speech as follows: “Here on this slide there is the locomotive which has already passed the switch with turn-off “slowdown of economy” and is running to “strengthening of economy”. He spoke it about his branch, naturally.

by Andrey Guryev
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