Putin vows to crack down on bureaucracy to help foreign investors

''Your opinion is very important to us. I thank you for a positive assessment of the work of the government in general and criticism voiced that was absolutely justified,'' Putin said at a meeting of the Consultative Council for foreign investments here yesterday.

He was commenting on a report submitted by Board Chairman of the Ernst and Young company, James Turley, who drew attention to facts which aroused the worst concern among the foreign investors. ''The first thing that aroused your concern is excessive bureaucratisation when making decisions while opening business or adopting decisions on investments. All this is true,'' he admitted. ''All this was inherited from the Socialist-era economy, when all decisions, including in market-related sectors, were made at an administrative level,'' Mr Putin added.

''The government is gradually switching over to a declarative principle of opening businesses and is practically turning over part of its permissive and licensing functions to the level of self-regulated organisations,'' he noted.

The Russian Prime Minister dwelt on plans for the development of the infrastructure, which foreign investors said was one of the obstacles to broadening their activity in Russia. The Russian economy seriously hit by the crisis suffered another stroke and narrowing the main export markets and falling prices. ''Despite that we are practically not cutting the infrastructure projects,'' he said, adding ''As for the construction of new motorways, we have been working together with foreign partners here, above all, partners from Europe.'' ''We are working together here, and will pay proper attention to all these problems in future,'' Putin said.

-- (UNI) -- 10DF1.xml

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