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Eastern Europe
June 8, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
situation is even more extreme in the car making industry where several US firms have built fac- tories in Russia: closing these down would have almost no impact on the US economy, but would wreck the local economy in many of Russia’s re- gions and cause widespread local unemployment.
Lawmakers initially proposed large-scale restric- tions on US goods and services, ranging from food and alcohol to medicine and consulting services, however, the final law is largely symbolic.
The law was one of two items of legislation. In the
Kremlin attempts
to uproot corruption, clear the field for
a spending leap
bne IntelliNews
The Russian Audit Chamber that is now headed by ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin will be given carte blanche to scrutinise regional spending, Vedomosti daily said on June 4 citing the amend- ments to the Budget Law approved by the govern- ment and prepared for hearings in State Duma.
Eyebrows were raised when heavyweight poli- cymaker and author of the current reform plan Kudrin's long-awaited comeback to politics was through the backdoor, with his appointment of the largely toothless Audit Chamber.
Now it appears the plan to beef up the Audit Chamber into a real oversight body that has a special focus on regional spending. Empowering the chamber, along with other recent appoint-
second, lawmakers debated making it a crime punishable by jail for a Russian citizen to comply with the US sanctions.
Russian and foreign business lobbies had said any such law would effectively force firms to choose between doing business with Russia and having dealings with the rest of the world and the legislation is unlikely to be passed.
Last month Putin said any retaliation against Western sanctions must not hurt the Russian economy or partners that do business in Russia.
Russia's Audit Chamber is getting some teeth to oversee regional budget spending
ments, suggests the Kremlin is preparing to clear the field and increase oversight by the centre in major spending hubs before its starts pumping President's Vladimir Putin's ambitious six-year RUB8 trillion of cash into the regions.
At the end of May Putin appointed Igor Shu-
valov the head of the state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB). Shuvalov is another heavyweight bureaucrat that has been Putin's economic deputy since 2008, and later first deputy prime minister. Just like Kudrin, Shuvalov is a long-time Putin ally that has proven his efficiency in office. VEB will be another agent that spends vast amounts of state cash on economic develop- ment projects, especially on infrastructure pro- jects.