Russia in the next decade

The major television channels are either controlled by the state or businesses loyal to the Kremlin. The state-owned television channels ignored the Volgograd mayoral election results, while NTV showed brief footage of the mayor accepting flowers and had a voiceover saying that he was Communist.

Commentator Alexei Pankin says that the Yelstin administration’s “almost limitless tolerance for pluralism in the media” led to an explosion in media outlets, but it also occurred at a time of extreme general economic hardship. With few financial resources and advertising revenue, “journalists sold their much-loved pluralism to the highest bidder”. But while the improved economic situation has now boosted advertising revenues and foreign investment in the media, official tolerance has fallen. Consequently, magazines which “cover mostly lifestyle topics” are flourishing while the political media keeps its head down.

Official corruption is a major issue which Putin clearly wants to tackle, but it is proving very resistant. Following the recent 2014 Winter Olympics win for Sochi, he asked the Prosecutor General's Office to allow "no embezzlement of state resources under any circumstances".

Russia also has it own version of Australia’s so-called “history wars”. Putin has said Russians should be proud of their history. In practical terms, this view has emerged in draft school book, A Modern History of Russia, 1945-2006: A Teachers' Manual. The manual talks about the need "to create a strong civic outlook in each graduate". In an attempt to reassure critics at a June conference of teachers, a presidential aide said that there would be revisions and corrections before the book was finalised, but elsewhere he said: "You can vent your spleen as much as you like, but you will teach children in line with the books you are given and in the way Russia needs."

In contrast to the lack of life in the Russian political scene, the economy has, with the help of higher oil prices, bounced back from the nadir of 1998. Monetary and fiscal policies are generally seen as conservative. Budget surpluses are large even though expenditure has increased; inflation is about 8 per cent; and the Central Bank has the world's third-largest gold and foreign exchange reserves.

Many of the debates about Russian economic policy echo those we have or have had in Australia.

The state electricity utility is being broken-up and privatised; and there is a Telstra-like debate in the fixed-line telecommunications arena.

Russian is in talks to join the World Trade Organisation and this is giving some impetus to reducing protectionism. Yet, as in most countries, there are limits. Russia will, for example, continue to offer some sort of protection for parts of its aircraft manufacturing sector.

Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the New Economic School/CEFIR, writes that a study of the results of administrative reforms conducted over the last four years showed improved regulatory conditions for small and medium-size businesses during Putin's presidency. There are fewer arbitrary audits and reviews, and it is easier and cheaper to register ownership and rental of property. But, as always - though almost certainly with more justification than in Australia - the tax authorities are considered to be particularly troublesome.

The 1990s saw an explosion of new financial entities parading as banks, and the murder of Andrei Kozlov, a senior central bank official, last year is reportedly linked to his efforts to clean-up the banking sector. The other result of his efforts was a move by some State Duma deputies to strip the Central Bank of its control over bank licences on the grounds that it was being too tough. Some of this debate is not too dissimilar to that we have had in Australia in the past about our financial system.

The idea of encouraging high-tech industries in order reduce the dependence of the economy on volatile commodity prices should sound familiar to an Australian audience. The government has set up a Russian Nanotechnology Corporation as part of an attempt to build an “innovative, high-tech economy". As always, as soon as a substantial amount of public money are available for something, everyone wants to get in on the act and it seems that, in the words of one commentator, “universities and institutes are all hurrying to create nanotechnology departments and laboratories, and governors are holding conferences on regional nanotechnology conditions”.

Oil and gas accounts for more than 20 per cent of Russian GDP and about 65 per cent of exports. Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the eighth-largest oil reserves, and is the world’s second largest oil exporter.