Vzglyad
Russia could earn $10 billion a year from privatization
The Russian government plans to privatize $50 billion worth of its stakes in major companies and banks over the next five years, according to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. The market situation favors these sales and individual managers are unlikely to be in a position to stop them.
"[...] We are saying that during the next five years we will run a privatization program that will yield $10 billion per annum from the sale of company stakes," said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. On Wednesday, he confirmed that the government was ready to scale down its participation in the capital of companies to be privatized to a controlling share, selling the rest.
In late July, the Finance Ministry presented the government with a $30 billion plan to privatize the country's top 10 companies, including oil producer Rosneft, oil pipeline operator Transneft, Russian Railways (RZD), state-controlled banks Sberbank and VTB, electricity grid operator FGC UES, hydro power generator RusHydro and others, in order to cover additional spending and the budget deficit in 2011-2013.
But the plan does not appeal to everybody in state-owned companies. Transneft head Nikolai Tokarev, for example, asked the government to strike his monopoly off the list of firms to be privatized. Kudrin, meanwhile, remains confident that "any stand taken by individual managers will not sway the government's position." "The government's intentions are what matters," he believes.
Kudrin added that the government had extended the list, but declined to elaborate. He said that the market situation was favorable to sales.
Yevgeny Yasin, head of research at the Higher School of Economics, estimates that the state controls more than 50% of all currently available assets. "If the state holds 50% of all assets, we all lose out, but if it retains 10% to 15%, and allows education and healthcare to develop independently, the positive effect will be even greater," he said. In this sense he said, privatization is important and just what is needed. The problem is that the state wants to sell its assets but not lose control over the companies. While the budget could profit from this, market competition will not improve.
"The government's sale of state stakes fits into its plans for budget spending growth over the next few years," says Alexei Minayev, head of analysis at Rye, Man & Gor Securities. "Additional annual contributions of $10 billion will meet the altered spending forecast for 2011-2013, which is to grow by between 300 million and 400 million rubles a year."
State asset sales will also have a healthy impact on another government program, boosting the domestic financial sector, the expert added.
Gazeta.ru
Chechen congress in Poland
The self-proclaimed "Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" Ahmed Zakayev is planning to convene another World Chechen Congress, this time near Warsaw. The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded the arrest and extradition of the separatist leader and received preliminary consent from the Polish prosecutor's office.
Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen separatist leader abroad who was sentenced to death last year by the current leaders of the terrorist underground, will attend the World Chechen Congress due to open on September 16, according to a letter from the leader of the Chechen community in St. Petersburg Dånis Teps.
The news of Zakayev's invitation to Poland prompted a stern response from Moscow. Russia's ambassador to Poland Alexander Alekseyev said that "holding such congresses is a very dangerous business. [...] It pains us to see any country hosting a meeting of people who in one way or another have terrorist links."
Poland does not see any problem in the congress being held just outside Warsaw, a statement by Polish Foreign Ministry's spokesman Marcin Bosacki reads. With regard to Zakayev's extradition, if Moscow submits such a request, it is the prerogative of the prosecutor's office to address it. Following a request from Interpol, the Polish prosecutor's office has already issued a search and arrest warrant for Zakayev, should he arrive in Poland to attend the World Chechen Congress.
Moscow has given up on the idea of reconciling the moderate wing of Chechen separatists based in the West with the republic's current authorities. And Zakayev is back on the list of major enemies of the Russian state.
"There is irrefutable evidence that Zakayev has been involved in terrorist activity," Ambassador Alekseyev told reporters. "He and other participants in the Chechens congress are terrorist accomplices. The only way we can deal with this challenge is through international cooperation," said the ambassador.
Zakayev received political asylum in Britain in 2003 and is unlikely to ever be arrested, at least in those countries that have signed the Convention on the Status of Refugees. In the past, he has been released from custody in Copenhagen, where he attended the previous Chechen forum. The Danish authorities deemed Russian evidence against Zakayev to be questionable.
Meanwhile, the Chechen authorities have ignored the ñongress in Poland and have not made any statements about it.
Novopol.RU
War of values in the North Caucasus
Several new terrorist acts have been perpetrated in the North Caucasus after the successful elimination of leaders of the undercover extremist-terrorist movement.
But the latest terrorist outrages show that extremists still have clout.
This summer, the media discussed a split inside the so-called "Caucasus Emirate," an unrecognized Islamic state in the Russian North Caucasus.
Various theories, including exotic ones, implied that Doku Umarov, the self-proclaimed Emir of the Russian North Caucasus, was no longer an undisputed authority among the insurgents, and that some were ready to fight both Russian society and arch-terrorist Umarov.
The latest developments have bourn out pessimist views implying that the "Caucasus Emirate" and the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria were two different concepts.
The largely tentative Caucasus Emirate perpetrates terrorist acts but does not control all insurgent commanders. Consequently, the entire chain does not fall apart after one link is removed.
Dr. Gordon M. Hahn, a leading U.S. authority on Islam and the North Caucasus, noted this during the summer. He said the Department of State which had listed Umarov among other international terrorists in a half-hearted move, had failed to include the entire "Caucasus Emirate," its insurgents and junior-rank Emirs on the list.
The events of late summer and early fall showed that Umarov's discrediting and the elimination of notorious insurgents did not solve the problem completely because undercover extremists are like a network.
Attacks on notorious insurgents fail to paralyze the entire network which is fuelled by social realities that the government is still unable to change quickly.
North Caucasus Islamists display a glaring ignorance on Muslim religious issues, but use the authority of the Koran to prove their extreme radicalism and negative attitude toward Russia, Europe and the West in general.
Primitive radical Islamism remains the dominant ideology of insurgents.
The problem is that no one has yet offered an alternative system of values and concepts. Unfortunately, Russia is losing some aspects of the information war.
Moscow could have emphasized the fact that the latest terrorist act in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, was also directed against Muslims on the eve of the Uraza-Bairam (Id ul-Fitr) religious holiday marking the end of the sacred fasting month of Ramadan. The comments used did not sound very convincing or aggressive.
Insurgents want to achieve a number of specific goals. The latest explosion in Vladikavkaz shows that extremists want to fuel the long-time conflict between the Ossetian and Ingush nations at a time when constructive relations between the two are being restored, although slowly.
It is common knowledge that many North Ossetians do not distinguish between the words "Ingush" and "Islamist," although the real situation is far more complicated and contradictory.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Abkhazia opposes UN resolution
On Tuesday, Abkhazia opposed a Georgian-backed UN General Assembly resolution on the issue of refugees from Abkhazia and the Tskhinval Region, passed a week ago by a majority of votes.
The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry called on the UN to reconsider the resolution, primarily its refugee-return clauses. Official Tbilisi reacted with indifference to the actions of Sukhumi, noting that Abkhazia was a self-proclaimed republic, a non-UN member and therefore had no leverage for influencing the situation.
By initiating a review of the General Assembly resolution, Georgia hoped that its approval would enable refugees to demand compensation for lost property and to claim the right to return to their homes.
Tbilisi hoped this would exert additional international pressure on Russia which had supported Sukhumi and Tskhinvali in the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts after the August 2008 war.
The General Assembly resolution was supported by 50 states, while 17 voted against, and 86 more abstained. Tbilisi which reacted calmly to this success realizes that the practical situation remains unchanged.
"Abkhazia's request that the UN reconsider the resolution was quite predictable," said political analyst Paata Zakareishvili. He said Abkhazia has always submitted similar statements to the UN after the approval of Georgian-backed resolutions.
In its latest letter to the UN, the Abkhazian foreign ministry sets forth its stance on the return of refugees and their property claims. The 1994 Georgian-Abkhazian peace agreement contains a clause stating that Sukhumi is willing to return only those refugees who were not involved in hostilities.
All bilateral treaties and agreements previously signed between Tbilisi and Sukhumi became irrelevant after the August 2008 war and subsequent developments.
Both sides are now back to square one. Tbilisi demands the return of the refugees, while Sukhumi will allow only those who did not take part in the fighting.
Abkhazia which agrees that nothing will change in the near future does not deny the fact that the foreign ministry's letter to the UN is aimed to clarify the republic's stance.
The letter says Abkhazia advocates the creation of new mechanisms and formats regarding the procedure for returning refugees.
"It is impossible to return every refugee without exception because many of them are war criminals who were involved in the genocide of the Abkhazian nation during the 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhazian war," the letter reads in part.
Abkhazia insists on the verification of Georgian refugees, as this will make it possible to establish the exact number of people who want the right to return to Abkhazia. At the same time, the Georgian government refuses to register all refugees.
Kommersant
Limits for road small contractors may be raised
At a meeting of the government commission for transport and communications yesterday Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov suggested that the maximum amount of government contracts that can be placed at small and medium-sized road contractors should be increased from 15 million to 50 million rubles. "The preferences for small businesses in government and municipal contracts only exist on paper," the deputy prime minister said, suggesting the introduction of a threefold increase to the upper threshold for small business trade preferences in government contracts, in order to revive the system.
According to Article 15 of the federal law On Government Procurement, government and municipal authorities are obliged to place between 10% and 20% of their contracts with small businesses. The government sets the maximum value of these special bids and currently stands at 15 million rubles. Due to certain technicalities, most road works can not be subdivided into separate bids to ensure they qualify under this low threshold. The deputy prime minister believes that raising this, currently low, threshold will motivate small businesses in this sector.
"This is an adequate measure because 15 million rubles is a very low threshold," said Nikolai Nikolayev, deputy head of the transport infrastructure commission at the Russian association of small and medium-sized businesses. Nikolayev maintains that road construction is expensive and that 15 million ruble bids in this sector are hard to find. He believes that raising the limit to 50 million rubles will attract more small businesses.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service remains skeptical about this proposal. "Before changing anything we first need to make what we already have in place work," Mikhail Yevrayev, the service's government procurement manager, said. He explained that the law On Government Procurement only sets restrictions on companies that have nothing to do with small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, small and medium-sized businesses can participate in ordinary bids on a level playing field. According to the antimonopoly service, this accounts for the fact that the share of contracts placed via special bids is far below the stipulated 10% while the overall share of small businesses activity in government procurement is much bigger.
In 2010 Russia invested over 200 billion rubles in road construction and maintenance through these bids and if the limit is raised, the share of small businesses in government road contracts may well exceed 50% as early as next year.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.
MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti)
