Russia lacks business freedom - Shuvalov
MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) - Russia does not have a sufficient level of business freedom, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said at the Gaidar Forum in Moscow on Wednesday.
The antimonopoly service and the government "need to seriously make sure that competition in the business world is very free. We do not have such business freedom, we should acknowledge that," he said.
"This is evident in how business develops. It just develops through all the obstacles, despite all the obstacles. The country does not have an atmosphere conducive to the development of small and mid-sized businesses," he said.
Around 25% of the workforce was working in small and mid-sized businesses at the end of 2011 and the government wants to increase that to 28% by the end of 2012, Shuvalov said.
"When we wrote the program to 2020 we were thinking that the middle class should reach 50%-60% by 2020. Now we understand that with a completely different system of budget institution payments and more involvement in small and mid-sized business, the 60% target is really feasible. But we need to not make mistakes and to consistently improve the business environment and climate and create a competitive environment on the markets," he said.