Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 5 – The absence of
property rights, the excessive involvement of the state in the economy,
ineffective investments and massive corruption would all have to be changed for
the economies of Russia’s regions and Russia as a whole to expand, Natalya
Zubarevich says.
Moscow’s leading academic specialist
on regional affairs adds that “the old model of growth ceased to work in 2013
when stagnation began.” And she suggests that Russians need to recognize that
they stopped growth “with their own hands.”
That situation was then compounded by political mistakes (novayagazeta.ru/comments/71369.html).
Despite that, three categories of
regions are likely to see a growth in production. The first includes those
federal subjects involved in agricultural industry, mostly in the southern part
of the country. Because of sanctions and
counter-sanctions, their competitors have been removed allowing them to raise
prices and earn more.
But growth in this sector can only
be slow unless there is more investment, and investment in this sector has
fallen for the third year in a row.
The second privileged group includes
those with new oil and gas fields where production is going up, including
Sakhalin, the Nenets AO, Sakha, and Irkutsk Oblast. Old fields where production
is stable or even falling will not do so well. Indeed, they are likely to see
their incomes continue to fall.
And the third group includes those
regions where military industry is concentrated. These are the places Moscow is
spending and investing, and they include Bryansk, Tula, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, and
Ulyanovsk oblasts, and Mari El. If military spending continues to rise, they
will do well.
“It is already time to understand
that the crisis which has begun is not like the previous one: it is slow, deep
and long. And it will not be cured by oil prices alone,” Zubarevich says.
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