Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that bureaucratic mentality regarding business in Russia should be eradicated and pledged to ease the state’s grip on business in the country.
“The state officials must realize that they cannot rule the business forever. The economy must be self-regulated,” Medvedev said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper published on Monday.
“Many state officials, having the best of intentions, are used to practice manual management: they ask the Kremlin, the president, Vladimir Putin [the Prime Minister], and the ministers practically on any issue,” he said. “But it is impossible to have it like this all the time. It destroys the system of economic functioning.”
The president insisted that breaking the old mentality and introducing “solid and flexible” legislation should be the first steps toward the new administrative system in the country.
“I still favor systemic measures, not just one measure,” he said, adding that privatization was only one of such measures.
Medevdev, who is a strong supporter of economic reforms and modernization in the country, said the Russian government had amassed a vast amount of public assets and public property, and it was time to sell a part of these assets to let business thrive, as it happened in many developed countries.