About the future of JSC "Rusnano" – from the first person of the state corporation

"Silicon Valley classics told me: mission impossible"
The author of the financial stabilization of the 1990s Anatoly Chubais is now convinced:
in the country's budget strategy, innovative tasks should not be an appendage, but the basis
Igor Tsukanov, Evgenia Pisannaya, Vedomosti (published on the Rusnano website)

In the next month or two, there will be one less state corporation in Russia: Rusnano will be transformed into a joint-stock company. Anatoly Chubais hopes that after this, the company will reduce bureaucracy (and employees, by the way, too), managers will have more motives to bring funded projects to success and then there will be more reasons to call Russia an innovative country. But the risks are also great: almost any project out of 97 approved by the supervisory board of Rusnano, in his opinion, can burst.

– Since the new year, Rusnano has been transformed from a state corporation into an open joint stock company. What will change?– As you know, the Rusnano State Corporation appeared largely thanks to the efforts of [the director of the Russian Scientific Center "Kurchatov Institute"

] Mikhail Kovalchuk. The design was absolutely correct – the creation of new businesses and the allocation of financial resources for this. And although I do not like the form of the state corporation, nevertheless, I believe that at the first stage it fulfilled its target task. For us, this means not just a change of signage, but something much deeper and more meaningful. I do not like the form of the state corporation, and I have repeatedly stated this. I understand well what a joint-stock company is from the time I worked at RAO UES of Russia, when minority shareholders ate the whole "liver" for us, the management, but in the end we achieved trust and mutual understanding in transformations worth tens of billions of dollars. If completely over the legal subtleties, this is a legal entity that is much more open to the market, consumers, partners of all kinds, including financial ones. Therefore, it is much more vulnerable and at the same time has much more resources and capabilities. If you want its advantages to work, you need to rebuild both the internal structure and the external working conditions.

It's terrible to say that we have shortcomings at Rusnano. We are slow, we are bureaucratic, we are not very agile. All this may be normal and correct for a state corporation, but it is abnormal and wrong for a joint stock company. Therefore, along with the name change and all the necessary procedures, we are undergoing a serious internal reform in parallel. The goal is to become more dynamic, more market-oriented, more efficient. Technologically, this is a radical change in the structure of Rusnano, the creation of business units focused on business results, and the construction of a corporate center that "holds" the strategy.

Here I have to step back a step, otherwise the picture will be incomplete. The transformation into a joint stock company is only part of our transformation. Initially, we had two groups of functions: one – pure business, the other – public infrastructure non-profit functions. Therefore, we are being transformed into two organizational and legal forms. JSC is one of them, and the second is a non–profit organization "Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs", "daughter" of JSC "Rusnano". JSC is created by law in order for shareholders to make a profit and business to develop, and the fund does not have the task of generating income.

– And what are there?– Initially, when we were only given state money, they said: this money is for the creation of new businesses, and this money is for infrastructure projects: education, standardization, the creation of nanocenters, etc.

29 billion rubles were allocated for these non-commercial purposes. We will send exactly these 29 billion rubles to the fund.

– What other changes will happen?– Instead of investment teams, business units will appear in JSC, there will be a significant expansion of their powers and rights to manage assets, a significant increase in their interest in the final results, including in the work of project companies.

And a sharp reduction in the powers of the corporate center, which will be less able to influence the structuring of transactions. The transactions will be done by business units. And the corporate center will set the general rules.

– Will you be...?– And I will be the same as before.

Chairman of the management board, but not of a state corporation, but of a joint-stock company. In this capacity, I am still responsible for everything: for the corporate center, for business units, and for the foundation. By the way, I still need to be appointed. (Smiles.) So let's put it this way – I hope that I will earn the trust of shareholders.

"I protest against the word "cut down""

– What will be the business units?– These are divisions without the formation of a legal entity, which will receive in real management all the assets for which they are responsible.

These assets include: a) those project companies that have already been created; b) those financial resources that business units want to receive for the creation of new project companies. We have managing directors, today they head the investment teams at Rusnano. From January, these will be business units with full responsibility for the financial results of the businesses they have created. This responsibility will manifest itself in the entire motivation system, starting with the current KPIs (Key Performance Indicators – key performance indicators. – "Vedomosti") and ending with options.

– Was it impossible to build such a motivation system in the state corporation?– Not in full, although we tried to get closer to it.

– From the outside, it seemed that everything has been working like this for a long time.– Not really.

It seemed to you from the outside that it worked that way. And if you had seated one of our managing directors somewhere over a glass of tea, he would have told you: "It's impossible to work like this, absolute bureaucracy, coordinate this with financiers, then with economists, this with lawyers, this with corporate executives, and my negotiating partners are not waiting".

– And in JSC it will not be so?– This will not be the case in JSC, because all lawyers and economists will be guided by the Rusnano standard on transaction requirements.

Point. Next is the board, and lawyers, economists and financiers will have the right to express their claims only on the board. And then none of them will be able to say: I don't like the project. He will only be able to say: I don't like the project because the requirements for the project laid down in such and such a standard are not met.

– That is, the project approval procedure will become more formalized?– This is an inaccurate formulation.

The point is not more formalization, but that it is a formalization of a different quality. In a previous life, the managing director had to go through each of these departments and prove to them that the deal was good. In his new life, he should not pass anyone. He has the initial requirements for the deal, he prepared it – and brought it immediately to the board. Further, if I am the head of a business unit, and you are a financier, you can say that you do not like the deal, because the IRR indicator (the internal rate of return on investment. – "Vedomosti") below the approved requirements. And I, as the head of a business unit, can answer: yes, it is lower, you are right, but this transaction will lead to the fact that in a step I will have five more transactions growing directly from it, and there the IRR will be exactly 35-40% and will cover everything. If I don't make this deal, there won't be any others, so I insist.

– Will you become a joint-stock company right from January 1? How does this happen?– It is very difficult, it is a painful process, there are about six government resolutions and orders that need to be approved, and all of them are coordinated with key ministries and several government departments.

We would like to get into the register of the tax service from the New Year. I don't know if we'll make it or not. Maybe we will not have time by January 1, we will become a joint-stock company from January 20 or from February 1.

– Will you, as in RAO "UES of Russia", cut down the letters from the signs?– First of all, I protest against the word "cut down".

(Laughs.) And secondly, there [at RAO UES of Russia] we were completing the company's activities, and here we are simply being transformed. Now we have the state corporation "Rosnanotech", and it will be JSC "Rusnano". Such an external transformation, which is associated with a major transformation inside. In addition to everything I have told you, we are also experiencing a reduction in numbers.

- why?– Because a lot.

It is necessary to squeeze.

"Who exactly?"– We have an incorrect relationship between the departments that are aimed at creating projects and the departments that provide all other functions.

The proportion of people who directly create the nanoindustry should become higher.

– And now what is the proportion between the employees of those and these departments?– Now less than half work in the investment block.

But the proportions need to be handled carefully, because we have a large number of non-profit functions that will remain, but will be transferred to a non-profit foundation.

– That is, you will not dismiss people, but transfer them to the fund?– We will eventually do both.

We will also be firing, 30-35 people are already in the process of being fired. At the same time, we still have a limit on the total number of staff of 450 people. We are already taking away almost 10% of this number.

– Officials are being reduced by 20%…– Really?

I didn't even know.

– Will the salary of the remaining employees increase?– Nothing happens with official salaries, they remain the same.

But we received an important decision of the supervisory board – we were allowed to fix the salary fund for three years. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, it will not change either more or less. But all the savings, if we can get it by reducing the number, remain with us. But there are also bonuses that depend on the KPI.

– By what KPIs will the results of the work of Rusnano managers be measured?– The KPI system is already present in our developed form and, it seems to me, really affects our motivation.

Another thing is that at different stages of Rusnano's work, priorities shift.

There was a stage when the KPI system was just being created and its key parameter was the number of projects submitted to the supervisory board and approved. Presented, but not approved – left without a bonus. This stage worked, in my understanding, positively: we had a big backlog in 2008 and at the beginning of 2009, but by the end of 2009 we had completed the task of two years and reached the planned quarterly "capacity" (about 15 approved projects per quarter. – "Vedomosti").

Let's move on. The projects have been approved, but it would still be nice to implement them. And this is another task – we need to prepare and sign legally binding investment documents with all participants, whole serious volumes, here we began to slip. The project has been approved – the documents cannot be agreed upon, and there is no start of financing, respectively. Then we changed the KPI and put the amount of project financing there as a priority. Here, for example, we risk being without a bonus in this quarter. (He looks into the iPad lying on the table and scrolls through the pages of the report for a while.) For the fourth quarter, the threshold plan is 14 billion rubles. There is a risk that we will not do it. However, in the first quarter, and in the second, and in the third, we fulfilled the plan.

– Do you see all this on the website?– No, this is our internal portal.

– Is this information available to Rusnano employees?– Yes, every one of the 450 employees sees it.

And he understands whether he will have a bonus or not.

– And such a parameter as the output of the project at a given capacity is not taken into account in the KPI?– You are absolutely right in your reasoning by stages.

The first stage is to approve the project at the supervisory board. After the supervisory board – to bring [the project] to the start of financing. This is also a difficult stage, we have spent almost a year on it, now we have improved the situation, but not yet to the end: we have financed 38 projects with 104 approved. Not enough, but the situation is moving. The next stage is exactly the one you mentioned, when we will ask the head of the business unit not for how much he spent, but for the result. Here we will already be interested in the situation in the project companies themselves, the core of our business. This is the stage we will get to next year.

– You mentioned options. Will Rusnano employees be able to receive shares of project companies?– The Supervisory Board has approved two types of options for us.

One is for shares of project companies, and the other is for the income that Rusnano receives from the project. These are different motivations. In some cases, the task is to increase the capitalization of project companies, and in some situations we count on dividend income from companies or, for example, on repayment of loans with interest. That is, on cash-flow, not related to the capitalization of project companies. These are two interest groups, and options are approved in principle for each of them.

"IPO is a task for 2013-2014, not earlier"

– Your co-investors often complain about Rusnano's too strict requirements for partners. If you issue loans, then at a high interest rate, if you invest in the capital of a project company, then a prerequisite is the subsequent purchase of the share of Rusnano by a private partner at a fixed price. But at the last press conference, you did not rule out that the terms of Rusnano's partnership with private co-investors may soften.– Exactly in this direction we are moving.

And not because we are so good, but because otherwise we will not be able to do projects. If we offer our project partners conditions worse than the market, then why do they need us? They'll just leave.

– Sometimes they simply have no choice, not everyone will be lent money by the bank for start-up capital.

– It is potentially possible, you are right, but still the situation is not quite like that. A year ago they had nowhere to go, the situation was very bad. Today, applicant companies, in principle, have somewhere to go. Moreover, we have two examples when we were told: no, guys, we don't like your conditions.

"And they left?"– Yes, they left.

– Can you tell me who?– I can:

NPP "Kvant", for example. This, as always, was also connected with psychological moments. We agreed with "Quantum", the deal was approved, and then "Quantum" entered the ISS named after Academician Reshetnev. They looked and said: everything is bad, we don't like it, we have found the best conditions. Well, we found it so we found it, we wish you success.

In principle, this is an abnormal situation for us, an extreme case. But such cases cheer us up so that we don't relax.

Despite the complexity of the macroeconomic situation, it is still obvious that market conditions allow us to make our first borrowings on very decent terms before the end of the year. These will be our liabilities. And if we form liabilities cheaply, we will be able to improve the conditions of borrowing – and entry into equity – for our assets.

– Borrowings are bonds under state guarantees?- Yes.

– Why do you need this money? To cover the cash gap that arose after Rusnano returned 65 billion rubles to the budget out of the originally received 130 billion rubles?– The issue of reimbursement of money has been fully resolved by the government decree signed by Vladimir Putin, which provides for all sources and types of financing of Rusnano for the period from 2010 to 2015. The total amount of cash-flow, which is prescribed in this order, suits us, it is adequate to our tasks.

The second question is the ratio of borrowing and capital, which is set by the same order. This year we were supposed to receive – and received – 1 billion rubles from the budget in the form of a refund of the originally issued funds. Exactly as much as was laid down by the order of the government. Plus government guarantees for bonds and loans for 53 billion rubles. If we do not attract borrowing, i.e. another portion of cash flow, then we simply will not be able to continue working. And since the government is fulfilling this schedule, we also do not want to delay. We are allowed to borrow this year – we will take them, but, as I said, taking into account the market situation.

– Earlier you talked about a possible IPO…– IPO is a very big and very serious topic.

But this is a task for 2013-2014, not earlier. Just then, project companies will start working at full capacity, trillions will fall on Rusnano from everywhere and it will be time to pull up more investments. (Laughs.) I will not raise my hand to attack the state budget again, I will need to attract private investors. But not to the design companies, but to Rusnano itself. This could be a good way to evaluate everything Rusnano has done.

What is Rusnano for the market, what is our key competence? We create businesses. We do not produce LEDs, Optogan produces them, and we create Optogan. So an IPO is a sale to the market of our ability to create an Optogan. This is not an easy task. One "Optogan" is not enough – this is the first, and the second – in order to sell the market the ability to create businesses, you need not just to create an "Optogan", but also to exit this project with a high multiplier. Moreover, it needs to be done more than once, it needs to be turned into a repetitive practice.

– What does Rusnano look like in your view in 5-10 years? 51% of the shares are held by the state and 49% by private investors?– Can I not tell you everything I have in my head now?

So far, we have only one solution – to transform the state corporation into a 100% joint stock company with the participation of the state. And then we'll see.

– Recently, the state has again taken a course to privatize assets. Is this in tune with your view of the future of Rusnano?– The state is a very complex phenomenon, especially in the conditions of the changing world situation.

But if we talk about the case, then, of course, one step after the transformation into a joint-stock company, you need to go to private markets for capital.

"And maybe nothing will work out"

– Are there at least a few among the 38 funded projects about which it is already clear that they have taken place? And the ones that are sure to fail? After all, out of 10 venture projects, no more than three or four usually shoot.– This is the pure truth, we are already beginning to feel it.

But precisely because our project companies are not yet at the stage of mass sales, we are also entering this fork at an early stage. For example, we can say that the project with NPP "Kvant" failed without starting. We have not yet had cases where we passed the supervisory board, signed documents, invested in the project, then his business expanded, and then crashed. We'll live to see it, but we haven't lived to see it yet. Our projects are "dying", fortunately, at the stage when we have not yet started financing them.

Are there any projects that have already taken place, with a serious prospect? Undoubtedly. Optogan has enormous prospects, it has absolutely hit the bull's–eye with the technological, design level. 130 lumens/W is the dream of Osram and Phillips, the Chinese are not even close to the technological level of LEDs. At the same time, a new platform is being prepared, even more effective. A strong team, the right guys, Mikhail Prokhorov and I interact well as co-investors. Exactly the volume of demand will grow geometrically. Already now serious people are walking around us: will you sell it? We say: no, it's too early.

- why?– We'll sell it later.

Much more expensive.

In general, I would say so. Out of 97 projects – very roughly – about 60 are good, strong, interesting. Some of them probably won't work out, but something will work out. There are 10 more projects that reverse technological patterns in industries, form a new way of creating products or create new products that did not exist before. These are very significant things, each of which can give a crazy breakthrough, or it can burst with a bang.

– Can you give examples?– This includes medical projects.

Pharmaceuticals – in the part that is connected with the nanodelivery of [the medicinal substance], with Skulachev ions – for a start [there may be] ophthalmological innovative pharmaceuticals, and then more shock. Or maybe nothing will work out – this can be said about each of these projects.

This is, of course, non-silicon electronics, which can capture up to 10% of the global electronics market. Tablets are just one of the areas of application.

In addition, there are several other projects that are designed to turn over more than entire industries.

"Ten more?"– No, there are only three so far, they have not worked properly.

(Laughs.) And not all of them have been approved yet, so it's a little early to talk about them.

– But still? Name at least one. Where will we turn the world around?- (Thinks about it.)

There are two spheres at the junction, each of which is a way to turn the world around. One area is the new base material. There is metal, there is plastic, there is wood, there are building materials, but we have our own, a new one, which is better than any of the above. Sales volumes – hundreds of millions of tons, change of technological structure in dozens of industries.

– Will we have to make new state standards, technical regulations?– Not just GOST standards, this is a new era in general.

And the second area is ecology, the possibility of an almost complete solution to the problem of the Kyoto Protocol (greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere. – "Vedomosti"). Instead of the entire current concept of "capture and storage" of emissions, emissions will be prevented, and a material unique in its properties will be produced from substances that are emissions today.

But I repeat once again: any of these projects can fail.

– Rusnano has a number of projects that are not directly related to the production of nanoproducts. For example, a project of a "smart store", when a customer walks through a sales area with a cart equipped with a special device that reads information from RFID tags pasted on products. The production of RFID tags is nanotechnology, but the creation of a store is definitely not. Are there many such projects in Rusnano's portfolio? And why do you need them?– This is a question on which we have a lot of broken copies.

There is a part of the answer to it, there is no part yet. There are nanotechnology projects for which there is no doubt. This is 95% of approved projects. And there is, for example, the production of polycrystalline silicon. In the polysilicon production technology itself, there is no nanosupposing. Nevertheless, polysilicon is the basis for all silicon electronics, and for solar electronics, the prerequisite without which it is impossible to move on. Now Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the owner of Sistema, and I are introducing a line for the production of 90-nanometer chips at the Micron plant, and polysilicon is needed for them. We have launched in Chuvashia the construction with [Renova owner Viktor] Vekselberg of a plant for the production of thin-film solar panels, they need the same material. It's the same with LEDs. That is, polysilicon itself is a fundamental prerequisite for developing dozens of projects in the field of nanotechnology.Our scientific and technical council is very qualified and strict, you can't command them.

Nevertheless, the members of the council considered that this project is correct and necessary for the development of the nanoindustry.

The same is the store you mentioned. The store itself is not nanotechnology. But imagine for a second how much demand it creates for nanoproducts (and not only). 45-50 million people are served in chain stores. 50 million people buy, say, three products a day there. And each product has an RFID tag. Multiply these 50 million by three and by 365 days – you get a demand for billions of units of nanoproducts per year! Even chips for bio–passports can be issued no more than 145 million - and only once. And here is a multi-order difference. There are huge opportunities for RFID in cargo air, railway, sea, and road transportation.

We have taken up the creation of the nanoindustry. This means that we must understand the task systematically – not just to make a light bulb and sell it. This is a task that requires infrastructure support, including demand-side support.

Now another part of our position. There are really interesting projects outside of nano. Sometimes, it just itches to take hold of them. But Rusnano has a basic task: in 2015, the size of the nanoindustry in the country should be 900 billion rubles. As a result, they will ask us for it. And 900 billion rubles is a very difficult task, even unsolvable, according to very serious people who understand what they are talking about, including the classics of Silicon Valley, who told me: mission impossible, dear friend. (Laughs.) Therefore, it is simply wrong to go much beyond the 900 billion nanoindustry.

"Yakutia can become one of the innovative drivers"

– Here it was proposed to consider a whole car with LED headlights as a nanoproduct. Then the mission would be very feasible. You refused, didn't you?– Yes, we don't need such a gift.

We are working very seriously and closely with Rosstat on this topic. His professional opinion should be treated very carefully. We have already listened to the concept of what is considered a nanoproduct three times on the board, and we have not yet fully formulated the answer ourselves.

There are obvious things: the car is definitely not nano, everyone agrees here. The car has LED lighting. Shall we take the whole headlight? But in the headlight there is a glass focusing the radiation, there is a metal frame, etc. It won't do. We leave the light source itself – everything seems to be clear here. But, generally speaking, there is a proper heterostructure in the source, it is in the housing, phosphorescent elements on the housing, providing a color gamut… Which of these are nanoproducts? It's not that simple.

There is a downside. Our figures show that a significant part of gasoline in our country is already produced at installations with nanocatalysts. If we count it, we will immediately get 360 billion rubles. But why is it necessary? I don't want.

– The course on innovation was announced 1.5 years ago. During this time, this topic has already turned from fashionable to tedious – so much has been said about it. But it is still unclear what is meant by innovation. Do you understand? Can you describe the innovative model of Russia?– In fact, at least several models of building an innovative economy in Russia are already being viewed.

Our country is very large: completely different models of innovative economy are being formed in the Russian regions.

– Give an example.– Let's take three points – Perm, Tomsk and Yakutia.

– Tomsk and Perm are more or less clear. And what does Yakutia have to do with it?– I'll explain in order.

In Perm and Tomsk – endogenous, i.e. originated within the regions, models. Perm is an industrial region with a large share of modern technologies: from engine building to instrument making. The core of the projects that are developing there is a production with a good engineering culture, with the addition of nanocomponents. For example, the Perm Novomet, which built an enterprise for the production of submersible pumps for oil production. They organized it in an open field, and the company turned out to be not just good, but very good. Their products are competitive on the world market. The basic reason for the success is that they have brought the technological culture of powder metallurgy to the pumps. Now the pumps can work in an aggressive chemical environment. This is a serious business, to which we attach a nanocomponent related to the dispersion of the powder itself and the nanocoating, and the company enters the next stage of development.

Tomsk is one of the best innovative regions in the country. There, Governor Viktor Kress spent 15 years building innovative infrastructure, "innovative elevators", when the federal authorities did not even talk about any modernization. And today there are companies in the region that were born in garages, but have grown to serious businesses, for example, "Mikran". Tomsk has an innovative model that differs from Perm – it grew not from industry, but from university and scientific startups.

– And in Yakutsk?– You are wrong when you ask about Yakutia with such skepticism.

Yakutia can become one of the innovative drivers in Siberia and the Far East. But in Yakutia there is an exogenous innovative model, i.e. introduced from the outside. The authorities of Yakutia were able to create conditions for innovative businesses to come to the territory. To begin with, the republic, together with us, invested in the St. Petersburg Optogan and began to monitor the development of this business. After a step, they realized that if LEDs were made in St. Petersburg, then lamps based on them could be produced in Yakutia.

– So Yakutia can become such a small China?— no.

In China, one of the basic advantages is cheap labor. And there is no cheap labor in Yakutia. But they take into account the nature of demand. For example, in Yakutia, building materials are needed that can work at temperatures of minus 50-60 degrees. And the republic has engaged in the development of a serious business for the manufacture of load-bearing building structures not from metal, but from basalt fiber. We will definitely help them, and I am sure that these products will be in demand in other regions.

"Grab the train station, the suitcase is leaving"

– You talk about point innovations that have spontaneously developed for various reasons. But what is the innovation model of the whole country? So far, it seems that the outpost of innovation is Skolkovo, created on an administrative resource.– Replace the word "spontaneous" with the word "natural".

It is very important. The whole strength of Tomsk lies in the fact that the authorities supported the naturally formed processes. If she had done it artificially, nothing would have happened. And Yakutia is developing not artificially, but organically. But I agree with you: there is no holistic strategic vision of what the process of creating an innovative economy in the country is. You don't see this strategy. I'll reveal a terrible secret: and I don't see her. Here, claims are usually made to the government that it does not have an innovation strategy. There is no need to make such claims. The government cannot do what the intellectual elite does not have. We still have a very low professional level of accumulated knowledge about the innovative economy. A year and a half of discussions have helped, but they are clearly insufficient.

– Did we understand you correctly that segments of the innovative economy will be formed naturally in Russia?– The innovation economy will be different in different regions.

That's just fine. The regions have already integrated into the innovation race. Territories appeared that were not on the innovation map a couple of years ago. Stavropol, for example, where a global company for sapphire substrates will be built – and probably not one.

But with all the importance of the regional component, we must understand that there is an important part of the load in this structure – the federal one. It includes the solution of dozens of issues, even the enumeration of which will take a lot of time. For example, the transformation of corporate legislation, tax, Chapter IV of the Civil Code, technical regulation, industrial safety, environmental legislation, etc.

In addition, in my understanding, the functions and structure of the authorities, or, more simply, our native government, are still not adequate to the tasks of the innovative economy. It is obvious that serious adjustments to the budget strategy are needed. It is impossible to simply allocate 30 billion rubles for innovation and forget. In the budget strategy of the country, the innovation task should not be an appendage, but the very basis.

– And what can you call this situation?– The stage of storm and onslaught, or "grab the train station, the suitcase is leaving."

Maybe it is inevitable at the first stage. But, in my opinion, this process has been delayed.

– Recently, the president of Alfa-Bank, Peter Aven, shared his feelings about the current budget structure. He said that many things remind him of the Soviet Union before the collapse – large social programs with a low level of public debt and high oil prices. Do you agree with your colleague?– Aven is completely right and completely wrong at the same time.

He is completely right, because all our serious illnesses are noticed accurately, with a real understanding of the situation. And he is completely wrong, because Russia has a market economy, and the USSR did not have one. I can present a certificate: the decision of the European Union in 1999 on the recognition of Russia as a country with a market economy. (Laughs.) In Russia, there is free pricing, capital flow according to efficiency criteria, in which a "small" private company called Alfa-Bank participates. This bank accurately invests based on market criteria – where there are fewer risks, but higher profits, and not based on instructions from above.

And everything is fine with macroeconomics now, which is fundamentally important. There is private property in the country, 52% of GDP is produced in the non-state sector. Yes, it is still not enough and it is not well protected. Yes, the share of state control is obviously excessive. But the actions that the state is taking on privatization are correct, although it could be more decisive.

The main thing is that the market economy is irreversible, these processes are not played back.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru22.12.2010