President Handles Rostech Bill Himself
Rosoboronexport chief Sergey Chemezov did not receive a position in the new government, but he can take consolation from the draft law introduced into the State Duma on the creation of the state Rostekhnologii corporation, which will give Rosoboronexport almost complete freedom of operation, including holding IPOs for the companies it controls. The bill, which former prime minister Mikhail Fradkov intended to oppose, was not entrusted to the new prime minister. Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced it himself in his own name.
The draft law “On a State Corporation to Cooperate in the Development, Production and Export of Rostekhnologii High Technology Industrial Products” was registered in the State Duma Automated Legislative Activity Backup System yesterday evening. The text of the document has not been entered yet, but it is indicated that the president will enter it. The bill was introduced into the government by the agencies that drafted it. Under the rules of the government, it was to be discussed at a government session and then be forwarded to the Duma in the name of the government. The government refused to say when that would happen.
Rostekhnologii state corporation is a project of Rosoboronexport. Rosoboronexport Sergey Chemezov first announced the idea of creating a state corporation around the federal state unitary enterprise in 2005, and in June of this year he told Kommersant that the text of the president's order to prepare a draft law to that effect had been conciliated. The idea consists of the following. According to a document discussed in the presidential administration this summer, the state corporation will not be under the direct control of the Russian government, but its management would be appointed personally by the president, there would be no distribution of profits and the rules for information disclosure would be less strict than for a joint stock society. In essence, the state corporation would be a holding of state companies with special status and its subsidiaries could perform any operations on the market.
This summer, Rosoboronexport went through the grueling conciliation of the project with the presidential administration. Rumors had it that the project was not to the liking of the enforcement bloc of the administration, who allegedly found Chemezov too independent. But Fradkov, whose office received the document after it had been conciliated, found it even more distasteful. He stated at the beginning of September that state corporations “have to be founded more carefully” and that Rostekhnologii did not have to be based on Rosoboronexport. Unofficial sources at Rosoboronexport told Kommersant that the project had gotten seriously hung up.
It was after that, a week before the resignation of the government, that rumors began to circulate that the new prime minister would be First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov and Sergey Chemezov would become deputy prime minister for industrial policy. But Chemezov himself rejected the idea of joining the govetnment in a conversation with Kommersant.
Chemezov was not on the list of new cabinet members, but Putin did not risk the project further by giving it to the Zubkov government for conciliation. A government source explained yesterday that bill introducing into the Duma by the president do not have to be considered by the government or the legislative commission headed by Deputy Prime Minster Alexander Zhukov. That is the option chosen by the president for this bill.
Rosoboronexport spokesmen firmly refused to comment on their success yesterday, saying only that the document in the Duma “hasn't received a registration number yet” and there is nothing to say about it so far. Kommersant has learned that the bill matches the version prepared by Rosoboronexport this summer. Theoretically, the Duma could pass the bill in October.
If that happens, Chemezov could begin to implement his plans before the presidential elections. This year, the state enterprise has begun a project in a new sector of the economy literally every month – from production of special steel to management reform at AvtoVAZ and airplane fuel – without saying what the final outcome was to be. The only announcement Chemezov has made was at the end of August, when he said that all the main assets of Rosoboronexport should hold IPOs by 2012. So far, that plan is on schedule.
Dmitry Butrin, Irina Granik, Renata Yambaeva, Elena Kiseleva
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 26, 2007
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