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A GOOD YEAR FOR RUSSIA
Marina SHAKINA, RIA Novosti analyst
"We can say with certainty that the year 2001 was a good year for Russia," said Russian President Vladimir Putin in a call-in aired live on TV on December 24th.
Indeed: with the 2001 economic advance projected at 4%, the actual economic advance reached 5.5%; industrial production grew by 5.2% and agriculture "did even better," as the president put it; the crop yield amounted to 83.7 mln tons, which may count as a record high, considering that it was only 44 mln tons some 3 years ago; what's even more important, the yield level per hectare turned out the highest in the entire history of Russia.
The gold and foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank grew too. Despite the problems with international prices for oil, which is Russia's key export product, the 2001 state budget assignment was fulfilled 100% and the targeted surplus reached.
Tax collection grew by one third as compared to the previous year. Foreign debts were partially settled and one of the debts under one of the IMF credits extinguished ahead of time.
The real income of the population grew by 6.5%, with the increase of average wages and pensions amounting to 20% and 23% respectively. The number of the unemployed dropped from 11.1% to 8.9%. The birth rate increased. And, even though the life standard of the population remains low /according to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, it is still short of the pre-crisis level of 1998/, the dynamics is very good indeed.
The country's political life was generally characterised by stability and a near-lack of the usual nerve-racking struggle between different political forces. The influence of the leftist opposition, which dominated the Russian parliament for years, somewhat lessened due to the popularity of President Putin's policy.
More unification processes were taking place in party life, with a large bloc of pro-presidential centrist forces -- the party Unity and Fatherland -- eventually emerging in the parliament and society. Two rightist parties, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, finally took shape. President Putin's popularity rate lingered somewhere at 70% throughout the year.
The parliament, according to Putin's expression, "worked like a horse." In 2001, deputies passed two exceptionally important laws, the Land Code and the Labour Code, introduced amendments to the tax legislation, to the Criminal Code and to the Code of Criminal Procedure, and did much to perfect legal procedure.
Despite pessimistic expectations and gloomy forecasts about the situation in Chechnya, things kept getting better for this North Caucasian republic. Although the mine war continues unabated and local pro-Moscow officials are still in danger of being attacked or murdered, the number of attacks on federal troops diminished almost fivefold as compared to last year, and so did the number of terrorist acts. The republic began setting up its own law enforcement authorities staffed with locally recruited personnel. Next year, the newly created republican police are expected to assume full control of the republic's law and order.
Federal security services carried on with their effort to track down and seize Chechen militant leaders, which was more or less successful, although the most odious warlords, Shamil Basayev and Khattab, are still on the loose.
And yet, the year 2001 did yield certain results in this respect. Dagestan, one of Russia's North Caucasian republics neighbouring on Chechnya, has just witnessed the trial of the field commander Salman Raduyev, who was captured in Chechnya early this year. Notorious for his January 1996 raid on the Dagestani town of Kizlyar, which was originally aimed at local military installations but ended with Raduyev's gang capturing a hospital and seizing women and child patients as hostages, Raduyev was responsible for the death of 78 policemen and civilians during the Kizlyar "campaign." The verdict, which envisages a life sentence for Raduyev and up to 15 years in prison for his accomplices, was pronounced in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala on December 25th.
While all this was going on, Chechnya continued its effort to restore its war-devastated economy. For the first time in 10 years, the republic harvested a crop sufficient enough to satisfy its needs and is now busy restoring its energy system, telephone communications, plants, schools and higher educational establishments.
Yet there still remains the problem of refugees, who won't leave their camps in Ingushetia and return to Chechnya for safety reasons, and so does the old problem of providing housing for those who do return. But with all the work done in this direction, Chechnya's administration head Akhmad Kadyrov hopes the negative tendency will abate by the spring of 2002 to give way to rapid improvement.
On the whole, specialists say the outlook is optimistic and Russia needs not fear for its future. So far, it looks like the year 2002 is not going to be worse than the good year 2001.
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RUSSIA IS OPEN FOR EQUAL PARTNERSHIP RELATIONS
by Boris PETROV, RIA Novosti observer
The year 2001 has been a complex stage in the process of Russia's revival as a stable, responsible, and predictable partner for all those interested in cooperation with it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there has been rather sufficient progress in the most crucial avenues of this process.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, the main priorities of Russia's foreign policy for the year 2002 will be "maintaining world stability, strategic stability, enhancing the non-proliferation regimes, and disarmament (especially the prevention of an arms race in space)." The assertion that the world changed after September 11th, has already become a bit of a cliche. Indeed, the international community witnessed a tragedy which demonstrated the existence of new - real, not hypothetical - threats to its stability.
However, it must be also underlined that no state is able to counter these threats alone. In connection with this, one may assert that the first year of the 21st century will stay in the memory as a period of unprecedented solidarity in the international community in response to new threats and challenges.
Moscow firmly believes that the key task now is to enhance this solidarity and transform it into a new quality of international relations. This is the starting point for Russia's approaches to the current global problems.
This is totally consistent with the growth of Russia's diplomatic activities on the main diplomatic avenues, both in the West (the US, Canada, Europe) and in the East (China, India, Japan, the Asian "tigers"). The counter-productive debate about "is Russia Europe or Asia" seems to be a thing of the past. Russia is both, and remains at the same time a self-contained world power.
For instance, Russia's participation in the global anti-terrorist coalition has given it political weight and prestige, while becoming a symbol of the new quality of Russia's relationships with its foreign partners.
This is also the case for Russian-American ties which have recently undergone a drastic transformation, with considerable strategic offensive arms cuts to be made. There is also a new essence of Russian-EU talks, and the upgrading of Russia-NATO relations.
Igor Ivanov believes that the "positive transformation of Russo-American relations will not lose momentum. It is crucial to fill the legal vacuum, created by the US's erroneous decision to abrogate the ABM Treaty and also to sign in 2002 agreements on further radical, irreversible, and verifiable strategic arms cuts." The Russian Foreign Minister pointed out that in 2002 Russia would keep its focus on "reinforcing the UN's central role in today's international relations, including the tasks of shaping a global system of countering new threats and challenges - first of all, international terrorism." However, all this will not be plain sailing. Still, Russia's Western and Atlantic partners seem to be realising that Moscow is open for cooperation, not "at any cost", but on the basis of equal rights and partnership and with the right to take part in the decision-making process.
The point is also that Russia is not going "to make friends against someone", to set up new alliances, based on geographic, political, or economic principles. Moscow's policies are aimed at coordinating national interests with the purposes of the global community. Russia firmly believes that the world needs a new order which will consider the interests of every nations.
Therefore, Moscow can be nothing other than anxious over the western trend to form a world system based on the domination of the most developed nations led by the US. Neither it is productive to try to make a system of European and world security with on NATO as the fulcrum. The sad experience of Yugoslavia demonstrated what such attempts to create a unilateral political system result in.
The deadlock in the Middle East is becoming more and more conspicuous, as backing either the Israelis or Palestinians alone leads to nowhere. Russia believes that violence generates only violence, which leads to another step towards the abyss. That is why Moscow is calling on Israel and Palestine to put an end to the bloodshed and find a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis, with consideration for both sides' vital interests.
Ivanov stressed that Russia would "play a due role in settling conflicts in various parts of the world, including the Balkans and the Middle East." The Russian Foreign Ministry's stance, according to Ivanov, is making Russia's diplomacy more "pragmatic, consecutive, and predictable". It will further focus on creating maximally favourable and secure external conditions for Russia's stable socio-economic development, and improving its citizens' standard of the living.
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PLANS OF GOVERNMENT'S ECONOMIC BLOCK FOR 2002
By Raisa ZUBOVA, RIA Novosti
The guidelines of the work of the economic block of the Russian government for the year of 2002 became known shortly before New Year's Day.
The Ministry of Finance will focus on the execution of the approved budget for 2002. The budget is aimed at carrying out the most important socio-economic reforms - the judicial, military, social, and pension ones. Vice-Premier of the government and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin stresses that in this connection the budget expenditures will be concentrated on the priority directions - an increase in pay to personnel in the budget-financed sphere, including servicemen, etc.
The foreign-debt payments - they are to amount to 14 billion dollars in 2002 - will be effected in full. The Russian off-shore zones will cease to exist. The government is beginning active struggle against laundering of illegally earned money. The work to improve and develop the banking sector, aimed at enhancing capitalisation of banks will be continued.
Vice-Premier of the government and Minister of Industry, Science and Technologies Ilya Klebanov believes that the main task of the department he heads is to choose, together with the Academy of Sciences, "eight -- ten critical technologies which are crucial for the preservation by Russia of its presence in the rapidly changing world".
Vice-Chairman of the government and Minister of Agriculture Alexei Gordeyev deems it important to focus the efforts of his Ministry on setting up a system of insurance in agriculture and on increasing the volume of leasing operations. Great work on financial recovery of agro-industrial enterprises lies ahead.
Minister of Railways Nikolai Aksyonenko is sure that a structural reform of railway transport which will gain momentum in 2002 is the focus for his Ministry. Establishment of the joint-stock company Russian Railways which will become a full and equal participant of the market will be in the centre of the reform. Together with the state regulating departments the Railways Ministry will work on indexation of the railway transportation tariffs and determine an investment programme for the next year.
As always, a great volume of work is in store for the Ministry of Taxes and Dues. It continues fighting shadow production and will concentrate on the work with the debtor enterprises. Three types of activities - rescheduling of the debts, compulsory recovery of arrears, and then bankruptcies of the enterprises which do not fulfil their obligations to the budget - are on the agenda here.
As Minister of Taxes and Dues Gennady Bukayev said, the Ministry will continue, in cooperation with parliament, to improve the tax legislation - it is planned to abolish a number of old taxes, to specify the level of tax rates, and to continue the struggle against tax privileges.
Minister of Nuclear Energy Alexander Rumyantsev has set the aim of increasing the output of electricity at the Russian nuclear power plants by 6 per cent. The plans of the Ministry's work include construction, modernisation and reconstruction of a number of nuclear power plants, and introduction of new production capacities. The Ministry will pay special attention to boosting export of technologies and services, construction of nuclear power plants abroad, control and accounting of nuclear materials, utilization of nuclear submarines, and improvement of systems of physical protection from terrorism.
Minister of Natural Resources Vitaly Artyukhov expects new geological discoveries next year. His department plans to survey and estimate a number of new promising deposits of platinoids, gas, copper, coal, gold, and iron and manganese ores. Works to extract oil on the continental shelf under the Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects and a number of other analogous projects will gain momentum.
In the opinion of chairman of the federal commission on the securities market Igor Kostikov, reduction of investment risks with a view to developing the market of capitals is the key task of his agency. An additional task - to enhance reliability of the distribution of a part of pension reserves on the market of capitals within the bounds of the current pension reform - faces Kostikov's agency next year.
In 2001 the Russian parliament adopted the Land Code, as a follow-up of which it is planned to work out and adopt in 2002 quite a number of federal laws concerning land relations. There is a lot of work to be done in this sphere.
Creation of a state land cadastre, appraisal of land, land monitoring, resolution of the problem of land tenure system, and establishment of effective state land control are the main tasks of the federal land cadastre service for the next year.
President Putin and the government plan to carry out in 2002 immense work on improvement of, and agreement upon the tariffs of the natural monopolies. The idea is to increase the tariffs by a total of 35 per cent in two stages. The tariffs of oil and gas transportation by pipelines and their harmonisation with the price of railway transportation and with the tariffs of the other natural monopolies are a special field of work.
Next year the Russian government will continue its policy line of developing market relations in the country and strengthening the state as a necessary condition for success of the economic reform.
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MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON BUILDING UP MUTUAL CONFIDENCE
from Prof. Viktor KREMENYUK, Deputy Director of the US and Canada Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, RIA Novosti
The first year of the new century became the year when new relations between the US and Russia began to take shape. The outgoing year has been full of dramatic events, and now that we are trying to analyse its results, their estimation will undoubtedly be very positive.
At the outset, however, everything was rather complicated.
After the new administration came to the White House, a scent of Cold War seemed to return. It is enough to mention the "spy scandal" following the deportation from the USA of Russian diplomats, accused of espionage and Moscow's response. The attempts by the Department of State to interfere in the scandal around the Russian Media-MOST holding could not arouse optimism - as well as the campaign "to protect the freedom of the speech" in Russia (which is indeed under no threat), and Washington's contacts with Chechen envoys. All that caused a comprehensible concern of Moscow and rendered Russo-American relationships somewhat melancholic.
A breakthrough in bilateral relations and a turn towards trust took place only in June, during the meeting of Presidents Putin and Bush in Ljubljana. The two leaders' personal acquaintance, establishment of trusting relations between them, created a basis for a constructive dialogue. The sides announced a common position in principle: Russia and the USA are not enemies, they do not threaten each other and can well be allies. It was in Ljubljana that Bush said: "the USA and Russia are friends and they should not destroy each other," while Putin's assertion that "in the approach of Russia and the US to the basic problems of the day, there is much more that unites, than divides them" became the basis for the further process of negotiations.
It was continued during the later summits in Genoa and Shanghai, and during the November trip by the Russian President to the USA.
The September 11th tragedy became an important impulse for further rapprochement between Russia and the US. It was the first time after the Second World War that Moscow and Washington demonstrated they can co-operate in a fruitful way to combat a common enemy - this time, international terrorism. Although Moscow did not participate directly in the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, its military aid to the Northern Alliance and the intelligence it provided for Washington undoubtedly Played a crucial role in overthrowing the Taliban rule.
However, the end of the year, Bush's decision to abrogate the 1972 ABM Treaty became a cold shower for those who believed the Russian-American partnership was irreversible. Although Moscow is still going to continue the constructive dialogue with Washington and hopes that the relationships with the USA will develop positively - Vladimir Putin said Russia would do nothing to mar these relationships - the Russian government realises that both sides' good will is needed in this issue. Putin said the decision to quit the ABM treaty was erroneous, but he did not start to dramatise it. Both because American NMD will not be a threat to Russia's national security (Russia is capable of overcoming any national missile defences) and because the formal right of the USA to abrogate the 1972 Treaty was reserved. In spite of Washington's unwillingness to preserve the treaty which is crucial for international strategic stability, Russia is demonstrating its aspiration for a consensus on strategic arms cuts, an issue which is not less crucial. The opportunities to strike the START-3 treaty are on hand and they must be used.
The developments that followed the September 11th attack revealed that the coincidence of two great nations' interests in the fight against international terrorism cannot paper over their differences over a number of other issues. The Cold War inertia remains quite strong and it is conspicuous even in statements by some top officials in the current Washington administration. From time to time, they lay their Chechnya-related claims to Russia or blame it for pressure on non-state media or inefficient fight against corruption.
Meanwhile, if Washington is earnest in its plans to develop dialogue with Moscow, filling it with specific action and sealing it by crucial agreements, the Bush administration will have to review its strategy of negotiations with the Kremlin, and to reject the attempts to impose unilaterally advantageous decisions on its partner and stop giving ultimatum-like advice on the solution of domestic problems. Time will show whether the White House is
ready for this kind of partnership.
Summing up, we may underline three factors that have shaped the Russian-American relations this year. First, Moscow and Washington have rejected confrontation and realised that they have to overcome the lack of trust. Second, the sides have found an important sphere of cooperation - the fight against terrorism.
Third, they have demonstrated their willingness to maintain the current level of relations, to secure it and move forward.
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RUSSIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER SUMS UP YEAR IN RIA NOVOSTI INTERVIEW
RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT: Would you please sum up the outgoing year?
IVANOV: "We have every reason to regard 2001 as the year when Russia fully rejoined leading figures on the international scene for a direct impact on global developments. We owe this achievement to action proceeding from our respect for universally recognised democratic values, while consistently promoting our national interests--and this is of principled importance.
"That approach was exemplified the most graphically by Russian stances as international terrorism attacked the USA, September 11, 2001. As was globally recognised, Russia's clear and unambiguous position enabled the world to form a broad-based anti-terror coalition for concerted action in Afghanistan.
"As the result, the world is witnessing developments unprecedented in international relations ever since World War II. Those developments proceed from the human race realising with ever more clarity that no one can meet singlehanded the new threats and challenges of the globalisation era.
"Russia played one of the leading parts in the emergence of that stance, taken by the international community. Russia adheres to that stance not only in word but in deed. Putting it in simpler words, we have given up a notorious Cold War motto--'The more they lose the more we gain.' We have eradicated that principle from our political vocabulary and foreign political activities alike. Much remains to be done before the new vision firmly establishes in international relations to determine them.
"Russia was clinging to its active policies on many approaches to provide beneficial conditions for domestic reforms it is carrying on, for social and economic progress, and more reliable national security.
"The year 2001 saw Russian progress in all directions. Our progress was quicker in some fields and slower in others, but it was certain everywhere.
"A jubilee summit on the 10th establishment anniversary of the Commonwealth of Independent States brought together all CIS countries' leaders for a first time within recent years. That complete attendance spoke for itself. A great amount of work remains to be done for integration as it is gaining pace.
"Russia's contacts are on the upgrade not only with particular European countries but with Euro-Atlantic structures such as the European Union and NATO. They regard Russia as an equal and reliable partner, and it is really coming up as just such a partner--a fact of vital importance.
"Our Asian policies are no less dynamic. Contacts with China and India reached the highest level of the recent decades, and acquired a long-term orientation to place them on a firm footing of treaties. An active dialogue is on with Japan and the two Koreas, with Vietnam and other ASEAN countries. This approach is essentially important for Siberia and the Russian Far East as they are integrating into the vast Asian-Pacific area.
"We are also seeking opportunities for expanding cooperation with countries of Latin America and Africa.
"The USA deserves special mention. As we know, there were problems in Russian-American contacts within the new US Administration's initial months. The two countries saw evident attempts to instigate their confrontation. Moscow, however, clearly determined its stance on partnership with Washington, and is clinging to that stance. Russia is eager and practically ready for steady, predictable and constructive contacts with the United States in all fields.
"President George W. Bush highly appreciates Russian goodwill, as the four latest bilateral summits proved with their achievements. Russian-US relations did not come to a crisis even when the US Administration determined to quit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, though Russia sees its decision as erroneous. Russia is determined to remain in dialogue with the USA on disarmament and arms limitation, and will work for legal formalisation of tentative future understandings.
"As for international conflicts, which tell so badly on current global developments, something new came to Russian politics in that respect, as well. Russia no longer emphasises its contribution to settling particular critical situations. It now concentrates on consolidating international efforts for lasting conflict settlement. That point mainly concerns Afghanistan, which I have already mentioned, the Middle East, the Balkans, and certain other areas.
"We were paying special attention to consistent promotion of Russian entrepreneurial interests in other countries--and it has brought practical fruit. Russian business is reappearing in markets of other countries to regain what it has lost.
"There is another essential goal, to protect the rights and interests of Russian nationals abroad and of the Russian diaspora. A recent Moscow congress of ethnic Russians highlighted an improvement in that field. Such efforts are merely taking start, and will remain among our top priorities. Wherever he may find himself, every Russian must be sure that his country will stand by him if need be.
"To promote and buttress this year's success will be the main target of Russia's foreign policies in the year 2002."
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