MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia needs to guarantee the rule of law and keep government out of business in order to guarantee future prosperity, a leading Moscow-based financier said at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit.
Boris Jordan, who helped advise on the country's first privatizations in the 1990s and now runs a $2 billion private equity and advisory firm named the Sputnik Group, said Russia had made huge progress since the rocky first days of capitalism.
The rouble was not fully convertible and currency controls had virtually gone -- but much remained to be done.
"The economic reform process, particularly over the last four years, in my opinion, has come to a grinding halt," Jordan told the Summit, held at Reuters' offices in Moscow.
"The big question is the rule of law ... probably the single biggest thing business in Russia today suffers from is that you can't really expect to get a proper court hearing," he said.
Jordan also mentioned the dispute between the government and one of the country's top 10 firms Russneft as an example of state interference which concerned investors.
......Wealthy Russian investors were now keener than in the past to invest in their homeland but still faced a shortage of suitable projects requiring major capital injections, he said.
Jordan said Sputnik, a 15-person group which manages only its own money, had 60 percent of its portfolio invested abroad. This was not because of worries about political risk but due to a lack of suitable investment projects in Russia.
Equally, the financier said that recent flows of capital out of Russia had not been driven by worries about forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections but rather by the global lack of liquidity in the financial system.
........The Russian state, he suggested, should focus on infrastructure projects such as providing better roads and essential services to open up new suburbs, allowing residents to move out of crowded and densely populated cities. Read article hereLabels: business, russian business news |
