“Innovation driven development is problematic in Russia, as the country has no innovation market,” news agency ITAR-TASS reported President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industries Sergei Katyrin as saying.
Katyrin made the statement on Sunday at a session of the Russian Economic Forum held in Strasbourg, France.
“Russia has a foundation for the development of new technologies, but there is no one to promote them. Russian businesses have no motivation for introducing innovations due to the absence or insufficiency of competition in key industries. Meanwhile, competition is the main incentive for using advanced technologies in the West,” Katyrin said.
“The government does not make sufficient efforts to encourage businessmen to use innovations. The government is the main donor of research and development in Russia, while that is mostly the area of private business in the United States,” Katyrin added.
Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov, who also attended the meeting, agreed with Katyrin’s opinion.
“Innovations and modernization are slow to come. It is necessary to enlarge investments in (…) education, science and healthcare,” which “are underfinanced in Russia as compared with member countries of the OECD,” Shatalov concluded.
Innovation driven modernization appears to be the cornerstone of President Medvedev’s policies, but “corruption, closure to investment, excessive state presence in the economy, and over centralization” are among the main obstacles, Medvedev emphasized recently.
