Deputy head of the government staff Mikhail Kopeikin said so at a session of the Russian Economic Forum in London.
"The government has opted for the innovative road of economic development targeting institutional reforms", Kopeikin said. He spoke of the government-adopted scenario for Russia's average-term social and economic development.
According to the governmental forecasts, the growth of the GDP in 2006 will be 6 percent, 6.1 percent in 2007, 6.2 percent in 2008, Kopeikin recalled.
He cited the set of measures for increasing the GDP rate of growth in the near future. Thus, the increase in state investments in the production of oil and gas, development of the transport infrastructure will boost the rate of economic growth by 1.3 percent. Another 1 percent of the GDP can be accounted for by state investments and the innovative sector, including aircraft manufacture and communication.
A lower tax burden on business will, in the opinion of Kopeikin, increase the rate of economic growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percent.
The next to take the floor was Boris Titov, chairman of the national public organization Business Russia (organizer of the forum). He was not as optimistic. "The policy of the government is faltering", he said.
By way of argument he cited the lowering rate of economic growth and the speeding up of inflation.
Titov noted that Russia has two to three more years of a favorable foreign economic situation. "This time has to be taken advantage of to avert the raw-materials bias", Titov summed up.
