6318
[Second Issue of the Day]
#3
strana.ru
June 19, 2002
Federal Securities Commission: Russia's Real Investment
Resources Total $500 Billion
"The main task now is to boost these investments and protect the bank accounts of the population": FSC Chairman Kostikov
The Chairman of the Federal Securities Commission (FSC), Igor Kostikov, has just announced that investments have been made in the real sector of Russia's economy for the first time in the past 11 years. He made this announcement on Wednesday, June 19, at a briefing within the framework of the Russian Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, a Strana.Ru correspondent reports.
"The main task now is to boost these investments and protect the bank accounts of the population," Kostikov emphasized. He pointed out that 38 "regulating" documents had already been adopted or would be adopted within the foreseeable future. "We must convince investors that their savings will not be stolen," he declared. According to the FSC chairman, Russia's real investment resources today total $500 billion. "We may well imagine what changes Russia's economy will witness if this money is put to work," Kostikov pointed out.
Meanwhile, at the same Forum, PM Mikhail Kasyanov announced that Russia was attaching particular significance to the development of industrial cooperation among CIS member states.
CIS countries have a formidable resource potential, and "to coordinate the use of that potential in the interests of the growing economies of our countries is the natural priority for industrial integration." Kasyanov made a statement to this effect at the opening of the Forum, a Strana.ru correspondent reports.
According to Kasyanov, the joint statement made by the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan on expanding and deepening trade-economic ties in the natural gas sphere is a vivid example of concrete steps in that direction.
The Alma Ata Declaration is geared towards coordinating policy in the area of producing and delivering natural gas, as well as investments in the natural gas industry. It is seen as an important step towards consolidating a strategic partnership between gas companies of the four countries involved, as well as opening the road for forming a Eurasian gas alliance, Kasyanov pointed out.
The Russian prime minister explained that the strategic goal of such a Eurasian gas alliance was to link up with other countries, through whose territories natural gas would pass in transit. Towards this end, Mikhail Kasyanov praised the statement by the presidents of Russia and Ukraine to cooperate in utilizing trunk gas pipelines passing through Ukrainian territory and ensuring a steady flow of natural gas to European countries.
In Kasyanov's opinion, the implementation of this project will ensure long-term risk-free gas deliveries to European gas-transport systems.
At the same time, the prime minister emphasized that cooperation in the area of delivering raw materials to external markets was not a goal in and of itself. "This," he pointed out, "(is) only one of the instruments for promoting cooperation between our economies, first of all, within the framework of the Eurasian economic community".
During his opening address, Kasyanov also announced that, "at the given stage of reforms, the state must curb unjustified interference in the national economy," a Strana.ru correspondent reports.
The head of the Russian government made it clear that it was necessary to resolutely abolish measures that restricted competition on the market, and in so doing, would make it easier for businessmen to enter new markets.
"The removal of these obstacles is seen as a colossal reserve for further economic growth that will not only accelerate our development, also substantially enhance the quality of this economic development," Kasyanov stressed.
Among the pressing problems facing the government, Kasyanov singled out the question of deploying productive forces in Russia - a question that he believes is becoming more timely in view of the vast territories and different levels of development in Russia's many regions. "We must plan well in advance and define our priorities in the transportation and energy infrastructures," he emphasized.
"The development of global projects in the sphere of transport and energy production can be carried out with the support and direct participation of the state when insufficient market mechanisms render it impossible to implement such projects exclusively via the efforts of private investors," Kasyanov pointed out. The prime minister believes that insufficient use of the country's intellectual potential represents one of Russia's chief economic problems.
"We have managed to stem the flow of capital out of the country, but in the intellectual sphere, Russia is still a donor to other countries," he emphasized.
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