Siberia’s Metal and Energy Production Only has Importance When and Where These are Used, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 -- Moscow officials routinely celebrate Siberia’s metal and energy production, Dmitry Verkhoturov says; but those things acquire importance only when they are used to produce something, a pattern that was true in Soviet times when these Siberian “products” were used for military industry in the region but is less the case now.

            Metal and energy “do not mean a lot by themselves,” the commentator on economic issues in Russia east of the Urals says; “they acquire significance only in connection of their rolein the preparation of something very necessary and useful.” Increasing the output of the two without reference to that is meaningless and even counterproductive (sibmix.com/?doc=22493).

            Russian officials got used to thinking and talking in this way during Soviet times when metals and power produced in Siberia were used almost exclusively for military industries and any discussion of these industries was impossible because data about them were invariably classified, Verkhoturov continues.

            Now, however, those discussing how to develop Siberia need to talk about whether there are sufficient industries of this kind left in Siberia to justify the development of metals and energy or whether other industries should be promoted to take their place if they do not now exist, he says.

            But that isn’t happening, Verkhoturov says. Instead, Moscow officials and often those in Siberia as well are promoting the development of mining and energy production as ends in themselves without any discussion of how their output will be used or even if it makes sense to develop them east of the Urals when the need for their “products” is uncertain.