St. Petersburg – In addressing participants at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum last Friday, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s speech did not reveal any substantially new position regarding his government’s now established stance on modernization, but innovation was nevertheless put forward as the first and foremost theme in the President’s address.
“Modernization is the only way to address the many issues before us,” he said.
Among Russia’s achievements, the President named its lead in space, “maintained and even consolidated” over the past 50 years. “Russia today launches more spacecraft every year than any other country. We are completing work on the national GLONASS navigation system which other countries are also starting to use.”
Advances toward modernization in the past few months have included “projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars in priority areas.”
In the field of information technologies, the President noted the twofold increase in the number of families with broadband internet access over the last three years as well as the successful IPOs of Russian internet companies – a direct reference to the listing Russian Internet giants Mail.ru Group on the LSE last October and Yandex on the NASDAQ last May.
“Their total capitalization now comes to tens of billions of dollars,” the President underlined.
“Our plans go beyond building the innovation center at Skolkovo and replacing outdated technology with advanced technology in different priority sectors,” said Medvedev in an attempt to correct the overemphasis often made on the innovation hub under construction near Moscow. “These projects are just the spark, the catalyst that will trigger change on a broader scale and accelerate the pace of transformation.”
Vague progress but recognized obstacles
Praising the introduction of “advanced technology and procedures throughout the country” without mentioning them precisely, parts of the President’s speech ran like a typical exercise in self congratulation.
But Medvedev seemed clear headed about the difficulties his modernization program faces. “I have no illusions,” the President said. ”I know that we cannot totally transform the Russian economy in just a few years.”
Among the obstacles, the President named “corruption, closure to investment, excessive state presence in the economy, and over centralization.”
“We must abolish them, and abolish them we will,” Medvedev said. “Our citizens will do the rest themselves, do it for themselves, and thus for our country, for Russia,” he added in a perhaps overconfident note.
In a paradoxical statement, the President “guaranteed personally as president of this country” the continuation of his modernization program “regardless of who holds office in this country in the coming years.”
Source and photo credit: Kremlin press service
