VREMYA NOVOSTEI
50% OF RUSSIANS DO NOT SUPPORT PLANS TO ABOLISH GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS
The Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) issued opinion survey results yesterday. The majority of survey respondents did not approve of Vladimir Putin's plan to reform the electoral system. Asked whether gubernatorial elections have to be abolished and governors elected by local legislatures among president-nominated candidatures to ensure the country's unity, 50% of respondents answered in the negative. Nineteen per cent of them are absolutely opposed to the president's initiative, while over 29% are more opposed than not. Thirty-nine per cent of those surveyed supported the initiative. However, 16% of them utterly approve of the idea, while 22.9% only tend to approve it. More than 13% of respondents found it difficult to answer the question.
However, VTsIOM believes the authorities do not have to worry about the initiative's future. "A large percentage of respondents found it difficult to answer the question. This indicates a split in society over the initiative, rather society's disapproval of it," Dmitry Polikanov, in charge of international and public relations at VTsIOM, told Vremya Novostei. "People do not want to lose their abstract right to elect and thereby have some influence on authorities," said the expert.
"The authorities will try to explain to the nation that they are wrong, believes Stanislav Belkovsky, President of the Institute of National Strategy. However, they will carry out the initiative and go even further. I believe appointing city mayors may be the next step after regional mergers."
However, the results show that Russians believed the president that the procedure of appointing governors would help fight terrorism. Nearly 45% of respondents answered in the positive to the question whether the president-sponsored measures to consolidate power would help Russia in its war on terror. About 29% of those surveyed replied in the negative.
VEDOMOSTI
RUSSIA DID NOT RUSH TO ACCEPT CHINA'S SINGLE MARKET PROPOSAL
Speaking at the second meeting of the Council of Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that comprises Russia, China, and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan), yesterday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proposed establishing a single market with the Central Asian republics and Russia. However, Moscow believes China can establish an economic hegemony in post-Soviet Asia.
"China raised the problem of establishing a free trade zone within the six countries a year ago. (The member-countries are supposed to abolish customs duties and quantitative restrictions in mutual trade)," a Russian government official told Vedomosti. "We turned down the proposal in mild terms as it was clearly aimed at infiltrating many of our markets," said the official. Moscow fears that more intensive trade contacts with China will consolidate the unfavorable trend with respect to Russia: raw materials currently account for 95% of Russia's exports to China, while China exports largely highly recycled products to Russia.
"We cannot just open the borders, Viktor Spassky, a department chief at the Russian Economic Development Ministry, told the newspaper. We can thereby put domestic producers in an unequal competitive position as the SCO countries maintain different rules of export subsidies and state support for producers." "There are too many enterprises in Russia which are so far no competitors to Chinese producers," said Alexander Orlov, head of the international department at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. "They are, for example, light industry, electronic and metallurgic enterprises." "It is more of a political gesture to show an interest in appearing on the Russian market and boosting commodity turnover, Sergei Prikhodko of the Institute of the Transitional Economy said in comments on Mr. Jiabao's proposal. Vasily Kashin of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of the Far East believes Beijing's integration initiative will be blocked both by Moscow and Washington that have their own vision of Central Asia's future.
NOVYE IZVESTIA
BRAIN LEAVES RUSSIA, HANDS COME
According to the Carnegie Moscow Center, the main reason for Russian scientists to leave their fatherland is the low living standards, which force them to look for an opportunity to earn their living where intellectual labor is well paid. This was the response given by 76 percent of respondents. Other reasons are the low prestige of science (53%), the lack of real opportunities for self-realization as a scientist (50%) and political instability (40%). Yet people do not only go from Russia, but come to Russia as well. According to the State Statistics Committee, Russia's total migration balance with other countries remains positive. In 2003 the number of immigrants was 33,100 higher than that of emigrants. It should be understood, however, that if emigrants are mainly the brain of the country, then immigrants are mainly workers from the CIS and Baltic states, that is, hands, Novye Izvestia points out.
The Russian Defense Ministry conducts its own registration of migrants. According to it, 60% of immigrants go to Germany, 18% to Israel, 12% to the U.S., 1% to Canada and less than 1% to Finland. According to the Institute of Population Social and Economic Problems, the number of Russians actively looking for possibilities for work abroad is growing. If in 1996 only 14% of Muscovites considered work abroad an acceptable way to overcome the social and economic crisis, in 2000 they were already 20%. An overwhelming majority of Russian emigrants find work in the services sector (supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, petrol stations, etc.), but there are certain geographic specifics. For example, South Europe attracts mainly seasonal workers for the agricultural sector, while the U.S. prefers employing experts in programming and hi-tech. In the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, Russians work mainly in the transport industry or on large industrial construction projects, such as the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran or the metal works in Nigeria's Ajakuta.
KOMMERSANT
STATE DUMA TO DEPRIVE BREWERIES OF $1.5 BLN
Yesterday the Russian State Duma's committee for economic policies and entrepreneurship endorsed amendments to the second reading of the bill on limiting retail sales and consumption in public places of beer and drinks produced on its basis.
Deputies propose prohibiting drinking beer in all places that are not specifically equipped for it. In other words, after the law is passed, drinking beer will be allowed only in bars, cafes and restaurants. Along with the restrictions on beer advertisement, it is the most serious blow on the industry, Kommersant writes.
Experts estimate that beer bought for "immediate use" accounts for up to 30% of sales. Marat Ibragimov, analyst with the Uralsib investment financial company, estimates the total turnover of the beer market at $4 billion without excise taxes. Head of the Brewers' Union Vyacheslav Mamontov believes it to be $5.5 billion. Consequently, after the law is adopted, brewers may lose from $1.2 to $1.65 billion. Moreover, yesterday deputies promised to think whether to allow drinking alcohol-free beer in the street.
However, main players of the market do not believe that the law will encroach upon their interests directly. "Beers drunk in the street are mainly of the cheap or medium category," says Irina Kibina, vice president of Sun Interbrew [the company was set up in spring 1999 by the world's second largest brewery Interbrew and member of the Sun Group, Sun Brewing, to work on the Russian and Ukrainian markets]. "So it is mainly small and local producers that are going to have problems."
