MOSCOW, April 19 (RIA Novosti)
Ekspert
Experts: CIS Must Change Or Die
The Commonwealth of Independent States was established as a regional inter-state union, attaching priority to the centralized economy, and macroeconomic, not microeconomic, trans-border ties. The CIS will inevitably disintegrate unless become more business friendly. Dr. Olga Butorina, the Moscow Institute of International Relations' European integration department, and Candidate of Economic Sciences Alexander Zakharov, deputy Sberbank board chairman, expressed this view in an interview with a magazine, Ekspert.
The current intra-CIS integration model is based on interaction between states rather than markets. The integration model encounters more problems as the markets develop, which means the entire structure may collapse one day.
The CIS should draft a new agenda corresponding to present realities and proceeding from real, i.e. official or de facto, state interests as soon as possible.
Intra-CIS integration needs a new model for the market and democracy. The so-called mobilization model to manage an emergency - the collapse of the Soviet Union - has accomplished its objectives and depleted its potential. The CIS must receive a normal and full-fledged legal space, as well as a system of mechanisms for adopting and implementing collective decisions.
The CIS cannot survive without a new leadership concept either. Russia is the only country that can become the driving force of the integration process and so should assume the required political and financial commitments. Regional integration will not happen any other way. France and Germany have led integration in Europe for the past 50 years and no other model is being considered despite waves of enlargement. Russia must be the idea generator in the CIS and its leading strategist.
The CIS should chart a common strategy for developing its relations with the European Union. There is no CIS-EU framework agreement, even though the EU has already concluded numerous similar agreements with ASEAN and Mercosur. The development of bilateral relations under framework agreements will considerably enhance the positions of CIS countries in their dialogue with the EU. This will also enable them to create spheres of advanced cooperation, without either joining the EU officially or assuming the numerous commitments this would entail.
Izvestia
Chechen Terrorists Plan A Series Of Attacks
The Russian security services warn that Chechen bandits are planning a series of major attacks in Chechnya and other regions of Russia. The military, prosecutor offices and regional authorities issued this warning virtually at once, Izvestia reports.
Sergei Surovikin, commander of the 42nd Motorized Division deployed in Chechnya, said that bandit groups were regrouping in the mountains. Their leaders, Basayev and Umarov, are trying to reactivate contacts with even the smallest groups to maintain their influence in the mountainous areas of Chechnya, he said. The bandits maintain radio silence, and keep up contacts mostly through couriers. According to Surovikin, the terrorists believe that they must triumph in 2005 or lose their influence altogether.
Chechnya's chief prosecutor, Vladimir Kravchenko, issued a similar warning last week. He said the militants had planned several big terrorist attacks for June-August in Operation Fiery Summer.
Alexander Chernogorov, the governor of the Stavropol territory, said yesterday that terrorist attacks in Russia were possible during the May 1-9 celebrations, and the territorial authorities were doing their best to prevent bloodshed.
Last year's May Day celebrations were marred when Chechnya's president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed in a terrorist attack on a Grozny stadium. This year, law enforcers are doing their best to prevent a repetition of the tragedy. According to the order of the republic's interior minister, the local staff (over 15,000) will be put on enhanced alert in the next few days, said Ruslan Atsayev, chief spokesman of the Chechen Interior Ministry. Extra measures will be taken to protect crucial economic facilities, state establishments, administrative buildings, and schools.
Vice-Premier of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, a son of the late president, promised to name the murderer of his father by May 9.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
AUTHORITIES' MOVES LEAD TO STOCK MARKET FALL
After losing 4.28% since last week and falling to 688.9 points, the Russian Trading System index closed even lower yesterday, which, according to experts, was caused by the actions of the Russian authorities. Analysts are bearish in the short term, writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
The bad news that largely triggered the fall came from LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov, when he announced that the company was preparing for possible back tax claims.
"These repercussions were so great because no one expected anything like that from Lukoil," says Maksim Shein, chief analyst with Brokerkreditservis, a Russian brokerage. "This does not correspond to the positive statements coming from the national leadership about further interaction between businesses and the tax bodies."
He says recent news from LUKoil and TNK-BP, another company subjected to new back tax bills lately, has certainly not helped Russia's investment climate. However, he does not believe that share prices will tumble and foreign capital will flee from the Russian market because overseas investors had not been very active even before the news, so there is little to lose.
Some analysts even argue that the new tax bills imposed on large companies have not in the least affected the national market. According to Artur Shtrevensky, a securities analyst with Aton Capital, market players have long classified all possible scenarios of tax disputes in three options: the first is a Yukos tax-and-dismember trial, the second a VimpelCom tax-and-reduce option and the third a Sibneft tax-and-forget scenario. The market is slowly but surely coming round to believe that Yukos was an isolated case, and is largely anticipating one of the two latter options.
Gazeta
Russia: 97th In The World In Per Capita Income
Although Russia is 16th in the world in terms of GDP, it is only 97th when it comes to per capita income, Gazeta writes citing the World Bank's latest report.
The U.S., as usual, tops the GDP A-list with $11.01 trillion. Japan closely follows with $4.36 trillion, and Germany with $2.08 trillion. China is also rising fast, reaching a GDP of $1.4 trillion in 2003.
Russia's GDP in 2003, according to the World Bank, was $433 billion. However, in terms of per capita income, Russia is behind many former Communist nations, let alone developed European countries. In a year, Russia managed only two steps up, from $2,130 per capita for 2002 to $2,610 in 2003, which is still far from the global average of $5,510 per year.
Accordingly, Russia is classified as one of the "lower-tier" countries, along with almost all the former Soviet republics and China. In 2003, China had an income per capita of around $1,000.
Igor Nikolayev, the chief strategist with the Russian consultancy FBK, says the World Bank's data agree with the information of Russia's Federal Service for State Statistics. In 2003, according to the latter body's information, Russians earned 5,162 rubles per month on average, which at that time equaled about $2,500 per year.
At the same time, analysts note, Russia has already overtaken Germany and has the world's second largest number of dollar billionaires. The income gap is so huge because of an uneven distribution of the fruits of economic growth, says Yevgeny Gontmakher, chief expert with the Center for Social Studies and Innovations. The other reason experts cite is that Russia is still building up its already huge international reserves, and now is in the global top ten for this indicator, which leaves a great deal of state revenue in the state coffers rather than people's pockets.
However, experts argue, the World Bank might be too pessimistic about Russians' prosperity. According to Russian analysts, consumer-spending figures for the period in question exceeded official incomes by 72%. The difference probably accounts for profits from shadow economic activities, Nikolayev believes.
Profil
Russian Cell Phone Operators Advance On CIS
VimpelCom, Russia's No 2 mobile operator, sees expansion into CIS markets as a top priority. However, companies wishing to purchase CIS operators will have to fork out no little money to buy them. VimpelCom Executive Vice President Nikolai Pryanishnikov told a magazine, Profil, how his company was intending to solve this problem.
The Russian mobile operator is committed to expanding into the Commonwealth, Pryanishnikov said, pointing out that mobile phone penetration across the CIS is much lower than in Russia. These countries offer considerable prospects for growth but also pose some additional risks; accordingly, CIS assets will bring about as much profit their Russian counterparts in the short term.
Pryanishnikov says the CIS, rather than countries further abroad, has been chosen as the priority are for expansion because local networks use the same type of systems, and the VimpelCom brand is well-known. The Russian operator is currently negotiating the acquisition of some local companies and has applied to CIS governments for licenses. Pryanishnikov admitted, though, that attractive mobile operators do not come cheap.
In Kazakhstan, for instance, VimpelCom bought the local operator K-mobile - with its entire infrastructure, good coverage, and over a million subscribers - for $350 million, or about $350 per subscriber. Of course, it would have been cheaper to VimpelCom to build its own network at about $100 per subscriber, but there would have been few customers for a considerable time, and the company would have suffered losses. With these factors in mind, Pryanishnikov argues, costs are about the same when you buy an operational network and when you enter a competitive market with a new one.
When asked if Russian mobile operators had any real chances of expanding further abroad, Pryanishnikov said VimpelCom was not holding any talks on this.
Izvestia
Russian Aristocrats Want Real Estate Restitution
Some members of Russian aristocratic families who owned palaces and mansions before the Bolshevik Revolution have intervened in the upcoming privatization of historical monuments in Russia, writes Izvestia.
They are indignant that the state intends to sell "their" property. The members of the best-known noble families in Russia - the Obolenskys, Shakhovskois and others - have decided to hold a meeting in St. Petersburg, where their ancestors once lived.
Boris Turovsky, the head of the St. Petersburg department of the Russian Imperial Union-Order (an organization of Russian aristocrats living abroad), says there are legitimate claims to virtually every building in the city center. Now that the sale of historical buildings is beginning in Russia, the state is faced with new problems. It looks like these buildings will have two owners: the purchaser and the "heir," who will be able to prove his rights to this property in an international court, Turovsky said.
"We simply want the state to admit officially that nationalization in the 1920s was unlawful and to apologize officially for driving people from their own houses and their own country, humiliating them," Turovsky said.
Princess Vera Obolenskaya, a citizen of France, says the Russian state should recognize the right of the heirs to play a role in deciding the fate of the buildings. "We are of Rurich stock and over eleven centuries became accustomed to doing something for our country," said Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoi, also a French citizen.
There can be two approaches to the aristocrats' claims, said Alexei Komech, one of Russia's most competent experts in this sphere, who heads the Art History Institute. Real estate may be returned to them under a general denationalization law, but this law does not exist. The other option is to do this in keeping with the present privatization laws by using privileged restitution procedures.
