Doing Business in Russia Harder Now than in 1990s, Entrepreneurs Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 28 – According to a new study of “Russian business Over the Last 30 Years Through the Eyes of Its ‘Fathers’ and ‘Sons’ organized by PwC and conducted by Moscow’s NAFI Analytic Center, the majority of former and current entrepreneurs say that doig business in Russia today is harder than it was in the 1990s.

            The poll, which surveyed businessmen of the early 1990s who were born between 1957 and 1963 and current ones born between 1980 and 1991 casts doubt on the claims of the Putin regime that the situation in Russia has become better for just about everyone compared to the first post-Soviet decade (t.me/TheForbiddenOpinion/4257).

            Ninety percent of the sample expressed unhappiness with the grow in prices for fuel and energy, 38 percent complained about the growth in the level of corruption “in relations between business and the state, 46 percent expressed unhappiness at the declining skills of potential employees, and 42 percent complained of the falling purchasing power of the population.

Sixty-eight percent said that government regulation of business was “excessively severe” and said that if the government wants to see growth, it should allow businesses to operate with fewer restrictions.  And they indicated that however many problems there were in the 1990s, that decade was better for business than the Putin years have been.