MOSCOW, January 30 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged to clean up the path for fair business before the end of the year and hopes for the support of deputies of the State Duma. The premier wrote down so in his article entitled “On our economic tasks” published in the Vedomosti newspaper on Monday.
Meanwhile, he noted that “a solution in this issue lies not in the field of economic policy, as we should change the state, executive and judicial authorities in Russia.”
In his Monday article, which was published during the presidential election campaign, the prime minister stated that “the business climate in the country, its attractiveness for long-term investments are still unsatisfactory.” “The point is neither in the taxation, as it is generally competitive in our country, nor the lack of legislation, which meets modern requirements, but the main problem is the lack of transparency and controllability to the society from customs and taxation services to judicial and law enforcement systems,” he believes. “If to call a spade a spade this is a systemic corruption,” he noted.
“It is a fundamental and systemic task to clean up the field for business, which is ready to win in the fair competition,” the premier stated. However, “the solution in this issue lies not in the field of economic policy,” he said. “We should change the state, executive and judicial authorities in Russia, remove the punishing ‘link’ of law enforcement agencies, investigation bodies, prosecutor’s offices and courts, eradicate from the criminal legislation all vestiges of the Soviet legal consciousness, all tricks, which make it possible to turn an economic dispute in a criminal case against the litigating party,” he urged.
“All economic cases should be transferred from the court of general jurisdiction in court of arbitration,” the prime minister believes. “We should together with the expert community, judges and businesspeople to discuss in public and to finalize all necessary concrete initiatives to this effect before the end of this year,” Putin stated, expressing confidence that the deputies of the State Duma will support such amendments.
He stated that presently in Russia “the costs for business can fluctuate, you can pay more or less depending on ‘the degree of sympathy’ to you from some officials inside the state mechanism.” “The rational conduct for a businessperson in this case not to abide by the law, but find patrons and come to terms. But such ‘negotiated’ business will seek to suppress its rivals, clean up the place for him on the market, using the possibilities of affiliated officials in taxation, law enforcement and judicial systems, instead of making the economic efficiency of its enterprises higher,” the premier wrote down.
Meanwhile, he urged “to change the entire ideology of state control over business, restricting drastically these functions.” “A new strategy should be based on ‘the presumption of decency’ of business and proceed from the factor that the creation of conditions for decent businesspeople is more important than possible risks related with the indecent conduct,” Putin underlined.