Trud
Reduction through multiplication
On Tuesday, Dmitry Medvedev asked the government to consider the possibility of reducing the number of public officials by 20%, according to Trud. But such plans will not necessarily lead to a significant fall in the number civil servants which has increased by 100% over the past two years, despite many Russian politicians and regional administrators calling for cuts.
State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov says that a 20% cut in the number of federal officials could save the country 50 billion rubles a year. Last year amidst the financial crisis, the Ulyanovsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as the Republic of Altai and Tatarstan, planned to cut regional administrations by 10% to 20%. They saw it as a way of saving 2 billion rubles.
Statistics, however, do not indicate that the country's coffers will be replenished any time soon: according to the Federal State Statistics Service, between October 2008 and October 2009 the number of government officials rose to 868,000, which is an increase of 2.5%. In the past 10 years, the initial figure of 485,000 has almost doubled.
"Normal evolutionary processes underway in the state presuppose an increase in the number of professions related to scientific and technological progress which cater for society's new needs," says Alexander Kynev, regional programs head at the Foundation for Information Policy Development. "The Interior Ministry and the army are a different story. Cuts in their personnel are inevitable, because the structures are not coping with their duties."
However, these cuts do not mean job losses. For example, defense minister deputies Nikolai Pankov and Vladimir Popovkin were discharged from military service in late March, but retained their status as civil servants. "So far, staff cuts are implemented only in two cases: cuts in vacancies that were in any case unfilled, and when people are pensioned off," Kynev believes. "No other real attempts are being made."
A sharp decline in the number of officials is hardly likely, and if it were to occur, it will be through some contrived way, believes Igor Yakovlev, director of the research center of Moscow City University of Management. "According to the results of a recent study we came to the conclusion that soon, even despite the economic crisis, we will see an increase in the number of officials," Yakovlev told Trud. It is far from certain that effective officials will remain in their posts following any cuts that are enacted.
Expert Online
Russian-Turkish trade will rise to $100 billion within five years
On Tuesday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two leaders prioritized joint fuel and energy transportation projects.
After the talks, both sides also signed a cooperation agreement on licensing and supervision in the nuclear industry and a document to enhance tourists' safety.
Both prime ministers said Russia and Turkey still aimed to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion within the next five years. Although Russian-Turkish trade turnover fell in 2009 due to the global financial and economic crisis, both countries will continue to expand mutual trade, Putin said.
The sides will soon coordinate the required domestic procedures for the construction in Turkey of the $20-billion Akkuyu nuclear power plant with its four 1.2-gigawatt reactors. Ankara is pledging to fix the price of electricity generated by the plant for a period of up to 15 years in exchange for investment.
Nuclear cooperation is a medium-term prospect, whereas implementing pipeline projects as stipulated by agreements signed during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent visit to Ankara, is a more pressing issue.
Such projects include the South Stream gas pipeline, due to pass through Turkish territorial waters, the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the second stage of the Blue Stream 2 gas pipeline.
The fact that Turkey is striving to become a major hydrocarbon exporter in the Mediterranean region, rather than just a transit country, implies mutual rivalry, rather than cooperation.
However, Moscow and Ankara now have similar interests. Dmitry Shiryayev, a leading consultant with consulting group Finexpertise, said Russia benefited from Turkey's status as an exporter and re-exporter of Russian gas.
"In the first case, direct deliveries via the Blue Stream pipeline yield profits and eliminate problems with transit countries. In the second case, the prices required by energy giant Gazprom will, most likely, be maintained. But Turkey's transit status and related expenses will become a problem for other producers," Shiryayev said.
Putin also said gas flows were directed toward Turkey, and that the Blue Stream 2 pipeline would allow additional gas onto the expanding Turkish market and to third countries, except Israel.
The Russian prime minister reminded that Israel had discovered a major gas deposit on its continental shelf. "The Blue Stream 2 pipeline is unlikely to be extended to Israel due to purely economic considerations," Putin explained.
BFM.ru
Russian-Chinese trade resumes growth
Russian-Chinese trade soared by 57% to $16.2 billion in January through April 2010 compared to the same period of last year. The growth in commodity prices may push trade between the two countries to a record high of $60 billion this year.
"Russian-Chinese trade has entered an active phase of recuperative growth, with the growth rate higher than we expected in the first four months of the year," said Sergei Tsyplakov, Russia's trade representative in China.
He said this could be explained by its low start after a 32% fall in 2009. Bilateral trade has surged back almost to the 2008 level, $56 billion.
Russia's foreign trade amounted to $182.1 billion in January-April, up 46.4% year on year. China is Russia's second largest foreign trade partner in value terms, after the Netherlands ($18.4 billion, up 93.5%).
At the same time, Russia accounts for only 2% of China's foreign trade and ranks 8th-9th among its partners, although their mutual border runs for 4,300 km (2,672 miles).
Russian exports to China are growing mostly thanks to commodities. In particular, supplies of Russian oil to China have grown nearly 30% in volume, to more than 5.8 million metric tons since the beginning of the year, and about 50% in money terms.
China ships its added-value goods to Russia; the supply of mechanical engineering goods made in China increased 69% by May 1.
"China's exports to Russia are gradually returning to previous volumes," Tsyplakov said, adding that mechanical engineering imports have been growing rapidly.
However, Russia's engineering industry exports to China account for only 2%-3% of the total, and this disparity is especially alarming because China's engineering goods are of a lower quality than similar products from other countries.
Vedomosti
Putin tries to soften Iranian stance
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried to soften Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's stance in the run-up to new international sanctions against Tehran
The relevant UN Security Council resolution has been prepared and could be passed as soon as Wednesday, a Western diplomat said on Tuesday. A Russian Foreign Ministry official told journalists that the resolution had been prepared, and that adopting it would not prove problematic, but declined to mention specific deadlines.
A draft resolution was submitted for discussion May 19 by the five permanent UN Security Council members, including Russia and China. President Ahmadinejad subsequently warned Russia that bilateral relations could deteriorate.
On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin and Ahmadinejad attended the third Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Istanbul, Turkey.
Speaking ahead of its meeting, Ahmadinejad called on Russia to make its choice and not to side with Iran's enemies.
A resolution stipulating tougher sanctions on Iran has practically been agreed, Putin noted in his speech. But he stressed that "such decisions should not be excessive and should not place Iran's leaders and the people of Iran in the awkward position of impeding the development of its civilian nuclear power industry."
Putin also guaranteed that Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant would be commissioned this August, and that the second stage of the Blue Stream-2 gas pipeline would not be extended toward Israel.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Iranian and Russian leaders would meet on the sidelines of the summit. But this unscheduled meeting did not take place and was not planned, said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Putin's statements, aimed to soften the stance of Iranian leaders with regard to Russia, do not contradict Russia's position but they do carry different implications that are important for relations with Iran, said Georgy Mirsky, chief research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO).
Ahmadinejad warned that, if the sanctions were imposed, Iran would renounce subsequent negotiations on its nuclear program with the international community.
The draft resolution seeks to freeze the foreign assets of additional Iranian banks and national leaders and to ban weapons shipments to Tehran.
Although any sanctions against Iran are good, the UN Security Council resolution's measures would not be very effective because they do not affect the interests of Iranian leaders, Dr Ze'ev Hanin, an Israeli political analyst, said.
He said Israel's actions regarding Tehran would depend on how far Iranian leaders were willing to go in retaliation for sanctions, but that the situation was unlikely to deteriorate seriously this summer.
Vzglyad
Mikheil Saakashvili: We are not fools or suicidal
Georgia cannot maintain permanent confrontation with Russia, according to President Saakashvili
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili met on Tuesday with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, who explained exactly why France decided to sell Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia.
Saakashvili then launched into fresh criticism of Russia in an interview with the French media, at the same time indicating that Georgia does not want to remain in permanent confrontation with Moscow because it is "fraught with serious problems." Analysts believe Saakashvili's statements were just for show because of his weak position in Europe.
Before his visit Georgian media reported that Russia would be the main focus of Saakashvili's talks and that he was going to slam Russia for its failure to abide by the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreement. One of the agreement's clauses said the conflicting parties were to redeploy their forces to locations used before the August 2008 war. However, in the wake of that conflict Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and signed agreements to build military bases there. But Georgia sees the two republics as occupied territories and expects Russia to withdraw.
There was one tangible outcome of Saakashvili's visit: France proposed to begin talks on an association between Georgia and the European Union in summer. A French presidential spokesman said: "President Sarkozy mentioned that France had been a key supporter of rapprochement between Georgia and the EU."
It is traditional for a head of state paying an official visit to another country to give an interview to the local media. Saakashvili used this chance to criticize Russia in his interview with Le Monde. However, he did say that Georgia does not intend to continue this confrontation with Russia forever.
Yevgenia Voiko, a foreign policy expert with the Russian Center for Current Politics, said the time had not yet come to lift the diplomatic isolation of Georgia, because developments in South Ossetia are still on the global agenda. However, she pointed out the West's fading interest in Georgia.
An EU commission investigating the causes of the conflict in South Ossetia defined Georgia as the aggressor. "This ruling stripped Saakashvili of his trump cards. He used to present Russia as the initiator of the conflict, but now this argument has been weakened," Voiko told the Vzglyad daily. She believes Saakashvili made all these bold statements in Europe just to conceal that weakness.
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MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti)
