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Putin to take part in Agency for Strategic Initiatives Expert Board session

“New Business” projects will be presented to the Expert Board and Putin, who chairs the Agency’s Supervisory Council

MOSCOW, February 17 (Itar-Tass) —— Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will make a working trip to Krasnoyarsk and take part in a session of the Expert Board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives on February 18, the governmental press service said on Friday.

“New Business” projects will be presented to the Expert Board and Putin, who chairs the Agency’s Supervisory Council. The “New Business” division is bound to support young talented businessmen and unique business projects, to improve business climate and to overcome impediments to medium business.

In all, the Agency has considered over 3,460 projects from 30 regions. Currently it is working on 99 projects, and 50 of them will soon be submitted to working groups. The Expert Board has approved the fulfillment of 16 projects.

The “New Business” division comprises instrument making projects (14%), information technology projects (10%), and science and education projects (10%).

An analysis of projects presented to the Agency revealed main problems which businessmen were unable to tackle unaided. These include long periods of coordination of engineering infrastructure works and the choice of industrial sites, problems with borrowings, the need for new legal norms regulating various spheres of economic activity, the impossibility to replicate successful pilot projects in regions, and the presence of administrative and other barriers.

The Agency Expert Board was formed in July 2011 to evaluate and select promising projects. It has a number of divisions, among them, “Strategic Planning”, “Evaluation of Business Projects”, “Analysis of Institutional Changes”, “Development of Young Professionals” and “Evaluation of Social Projects and Initiatives.”

The Agency for Strategic Initiatives was formed by the directive of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of May 17, 2011. The Russian government is its founder. The Agency’s mission is to promote self-actualization of young ambitious leaders capable of bringing Russia to the advanced positions on the world market and to build a country attractive for work and living.

Putin chairs the Agency Supervisory Council whose permanent members are Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, Agency for Strategic Initiatives Director Andrei Nikitin, Sverdlovsk Governor Alexander Misharin, Tatarstan head Rustam Minnikhanov, Vhesheconombank CEO Vladimir Dmitriyev, Governmental Economics and Finance Department Director Andrei Belousov, members of business associations and a number of experts.

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