Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov expressed hope that next year Russia will improve its performance on doing business indicators, reflected in World Bank’s Doing Business rating.
“In general we’re actively cooperating with the World Bank and if we execute our “road map” on entrepreneurial initiative and all plans we have for 2016 there is hope that we’ll substantially improve those indicators,” Shuvalov said to President Vladimir Putin at a government meeting on Wednesday.
First Deputy PM said that 2016 will be pivotal for execution of the entrepreneurial initiative defined by President as respective “road maps” will expire then. He added that the Russian government plans to pursue this policy as it considers it challenging.
“Yesterday (on October 27) the World Bank published its rating where Russia had improved its performance and now takes the 51st place on the indicators you outlined for the government. In 2015, we were to be included in the top 50 states, which means we slightly fell short of the target,” Shuvalov said to Putin. He also said that Russia was among 12 countries, which carried out over 4 reforms that had favorable impact on business environment in the country. Meanwhile, Shuvalov said despite certain progress in implementation of particular reforms Russia lagged behind other countries regarding some indicators like external turnover.
According to the new rating published annually by the World Bank, Russia’s ranking has risen by 11 positions during the year. In 2015, Russia has climbed from the 62nd place to the 51st place. The country is only 0.02 points below the 50th position currently occupied by Peru. In 2013, Russia was ranked the 92nd.
Improvement of business environment is one of the strategic tasks of the state. In May 2012, President Putin signed the decree on the long-term government economic policy. The decree set the task of raising the country’s position in the Doing Business ranking from the 120th in 2011 to the 50th in 2015 and the 20th in 2018.
According to the World Bank, during the current year Russia has carried out five economic reforms, which contributed significantly to the advancement of the country’s rating. The greatest success was achieved for such indicators as “registration of property” (Russia has entered the top ten of the countries with the best performance) “power supply reliability” and “transparency of electricity tariffs”.