Iranian Embassy - London: News: Russian govt to mull measures to support exports

Russia-Exports
The Russian government is planning to consider measures to support exports in the nearest future, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said opening a session of the council for
competitiveness and entrepreneurship under the Russian government, which is examining the same theme.

Fradkov noted that raw materials prevail in Russian exports at present; the situation in this segment is rather good, which is explained by a favorable price situation and competitiveness of Russian labor force.

"But these opportunities will be diminishing every day," Fradkov said. "Without taking sufficient measures to ensure the necessary rates of production growth and overcoming the lag in technologies, we will be unable to compete, and the symptoms indicative of it are already on hand," he added.

Already Russia is losing its position on the market of raw materials, because of limitation of its transport and mining infrastructure, he was quoted as saying.

In other sectors, the lag in high technologies hampers the growth of exports, which may affect such segments of Russian supplies as armaments and nuclear power generation equipment.

"We’ll be unable to compensate the backlog without additional measures," the premier said.

Fradkov noted that the issue of providing support to exports has been repeatedly discussed by the government, which issued a number of instructions.

Part of them has not been implemented.

"One wouldn’t like another futile attempt," he said.

The Tuesday session has to work out proposals to support exports while taking into account the opinions of government representatives and business people, according to the prime minister.