Meeting of the Expert Council of the Government Committee on improvement the sustainability of the Russian economy development

The meeting was attended by V.A. Mau, Chairman of the Council of Experts, Rector of the Academy of National Economy under the RF Government, S.V. Aleksashenko, member of the Expert Council of the Banking Committee of RF State Duma, S.B. Batkibekov, Vice-President of “Troika Capital Partners" Management Company, A.G. Belova, Deputy General Director of JSC "Siberian Coal Energy Company”, A.L. Vedev, Director of the Center for Strategic Research of the Bank of Moscow, S.Y. Glazyev, Director of the Institute of New Economy, M.N. Glukhova, Director of Economic Policy and Competitiveness Department of RSPP, M.E. Dmitriev, President of the Center for Strategic Research, V.V. Drebentsov, Chief Economist of BP Group in Russia and CIS, M.V. Ershov, Senior Vice President of Rosbank, N.V. Zubarevich, Director of Regional Programs for the Independent Institute for Social Policy, G.V. Kurlandskaya, General Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy, V.V. Mironov, Chief Economist of the Foundation for Economic Research “Center for Development", M.V. Moskvina, Deputy Director of Labor Relations Department, RSPP, I.A. Nikonova, Deputy Director of Department of Strategic Analysis and Development of Vneshecoombank, V.V. Pivovarov, Advisor to the Minister of Economic Development of Russia, F.T. Prokopov, Executive Vice President of RSPP, L.A. Ryazanova, Deputy Director General for Development of Regional Studies, Director of the Moscow office of "Forecast" company, Nicholas Sundstrom, Chief Economist of Citibank, U.V. Simachev, Deputy Director of the Interdepartmental Analytical Center, M.Y. Surin, Project Manager of Center of Clients’ Business Support,"Gazprombank", E.N. Feoktistova, Director of Corporate Social Policy of RSPP, D.S. Cherny, Researcher, Center for Macroeconomic Research Institute of Applied Economic Studies, A.V. Sharonov, Managing Director of “Troika Dialog” Group of companies, K.V. Yudaeva, Chief Economist, Sberbank of Russia, L.I. Jacobson, First Vice-Rector of public university Higher School of Economics, experts of Academy of National Economy under the RF Government and representatives of other organizations.

The meeting was also attended by leading experts of the Institute for Economy in Transition: Doctor of Economic Sciences S.G. Sinelnikov-Murylev, IET Research Supervisor, Ph.D. S.V. Prikhodko, IET Executive Director, Ph.D. S.M. Drobyshevsky, Head of research in “Economics and Finance”, Ph.D. I.V. Starodubrovskaya, Head of research in "Political Economy and Regional Development", Ph.D. V.S. Nazarov, Head of Laboratory of Fiscal Federalism, et al.

The meeting participants discussed the paper "Development of a global crisis, current state of economy and the ways of getting out to the path of sustainable economic growth". In particular, the document reveals the stabilization of the global economy and its transfer to a small growth, but it is stressed that the current situation is not a recovery from the crisis yet. The is rather the stage, when government actions provided a breathing space for private economic agents in order to bring in order their financial standing, restructure business and create conditions for transition to the stage of recovery.

National policy of Russia is still focused on mitigating the effects of the crisis and measures of economic policy aimed at preventing such crises, while paying less attention to other structural problems of the Russian economy. Now it would be wise to develop a number of priority measures for medium- and long-term prospective. It is also necessary to define priorities for institutional modernization with regard to the crisis of the last year.

In this regard it will be needed to address two groups of tasks. First, go back to the solution of those problems, which were insufficiently addressed in the period of acute crisis. Second, the crisis has exposed a number of previously neglected problems and there is a need to develop a package of reforms aimed at eliminating thereof. In other words, the modernization aspect of anti-crisis policy is the priority now.

Among the areas of the new anti-crisis phase of modernization policy the following ones are included in the document:

•  budget system reform (a substantial enhancement of budget expenditures efficiency is needed);
  

•  financial sector reform with regard to G-20 initiatives;
  

•  monetary and credit policy (mid-term anti-inflationary policy, turning ruble into a reserve currency);
  

•  diversification of the economy;
  

•  innovation policy (its development requires careful audit of the effective legislation);
  

•  protection of property rights and privatization (legitimation of private property, formation of effective owner policy, strengthening the position of the middle class as a class-owner);
  

•  social policy and labor market policy (updating of policy for the support of unemployed and social support in general);
  

•  contracts execution (during the crisis, the economy has faced a serious challenge of various non-payments - among enterprises, salaries, loans, bonds);
  

•  antimonopoly policy and the competition support;
  

•  infrastructure construction (it is needed to come back to the issue of incentives to attract private investors to finance infrastructure and to those tools that are needed to be created or improved in order to intensify infrastructure construction);
  

•  energy strategy (in the last year two new factors have emerged: the development of alternative energy and energy-saving technologies. During the crisis there was a tendency to disengagement between gas prices from oil prices);
  

•  integration into the global economy and the use of external integration for growth acceleration and modernization of the economy.